A new Plasco building was officially inaugurated on Friday by Parviz Fattah, the head of the Mostazafan Foundation of Islamic Revolution.
The inauguration comes about five years after the 17-storey commercial tower located on Jomhouri Street, Iran’s oldest high-rise and an iconic structure in downtown Tehran, built in 1962, caught fire on Jan. 19, 2017, and was completely destroyed. The Plasco was home to 560 commercial outlets, IRNA reported.
Damage caused by the fire was estimated at 15 trillion rials (over $58 million at the current exchange rate) by the head of Iran Chamber of Guilds, Ali Fazeli.
"Unfortunately, a majority of the units were not insured," he added.
In the incident, sparked by an electrical short circuit, 16 firefighters and four civilians lost their lives and some 70 people were injured.
The new 20-storey building has been constructed over an area of 20,000 square meters and includes 346 shops.
Glass fiber reinforced concrete, which is light and resistant to fire, has been used in the facade of the building.
The reconstruction of Plasco started in the fiscal 2018-19 by the foundation, which is the custodian of the project.
The new building has an 18-by-18-meter helipad and 16 escalators and elevators; it uses the latest electrical and mechanical installations.
The northern part of Plasco, which was less damaged in the fire, was rebuilt by the shop owners and inaugurated in February 2021.
Warning About Fire Safety of Tehran Buildings
There are 100 buildings in Tehran with conditions similar to Plasco, half of which was shut down after the incident, but the rest are still open, the head of Construction Engineering Organization, Ahmad Khorram, has said.
“One thousand buildings, including 30-40 residential and commercial units, as well as 30,000 to 40,000 residential and commercial units, are at the risk of fire. There is an even more terrifying disaster than fire threatening the capital city, i.e., earthquake. Subsurface layers of the city, to the south of Enqelab Street [downtown Tehran], are soft; the groundwater level is high and in reality, buildings are floating on a layer above sewage. In the event of a six-magnitude earthquake, these layers will collide and buildings will collapse,” he was quoted as saying by IRIB News.
“In the year ending March 2004, Japan International Cooperation Agency conducted a study in Tehran and reached the conclusion that hundreds of thousands of residential units in Tehran will be destroyed and millions of people will be killed if a six-magnitude earthquake strikes.”
Khorram noted that people need to know that it is better to spend 8% of the total costs of construction on seismic reinforcement of the building rather than seeing an earthquake ruining their properties.
Noting that more than 50% of public buildings are also highly vulnerable and need to become fire resistant, the official said, “The lifespan of buildings in Iran was an average of 30 years in the 1970s; now it has reduced to 23-24 years, whereas in Europe and America their buildings’ lifespan was 30 years and now exceeds 120 years. There’s a long path ahead of us to improve the lifespan of buildings to 50 years. That won’t be possible by using traditional methods; only under 5% of constructions in Iran are carried out following industrial techniques and methods.”
Real-estate development by individuals who don’t have the knowledge and expertise needed in the field has reduced the industry to jerry-building, former managing director of Maskan Investment Group, the parent company of Bank Maskan, Rouzbeh Zahiri Hashemi, said.
“Iran’s construction sector is facing the inflow of inefficient and unprofessional investors for years now. The absence of a single rule regarding people who are both investors and builders has led to a decline in construction quality, age and rapid deterioration of residential prosperities,” Hashemi was quoted as saying by Hibna.
Asked why the average lifespan of residential buildings in Iran are much shorter than that of the global average — the average lifespan of an apartment is 50 years in the world compared with 25-30 years in Iran, the ex-official said that is chiefly to blame on the job being done by unprofessional hands rather than by efficient, certified builders.
“Is it possible for ordinary people to manufacture vehicles? Can they secure permits easily? Certainly not! But how about the same people deciding to build a house? No legal hurdles would face them. The fact of the matter is that there isn’t a specific, integrated system in place to supervise production of homes like that of manufacturing cars,” he said.
Underlining the importance of separating investment sector from housing production, Hashemi said, “The point is those who carry out construction work are themselves investors. Those who don’t have expertise are building homes across the country. They don’t have the perspective of a career engineer. They’re jerry builders. The quality of building starts from factories that make construction materials to the time the plan is being executed by professionals. The lack of safety and technical standards and principles in all phases of the construction projects leads to the premature deterioration of buildings, i.e., before the age of 50.”
