World’s largest building has a beach

BEIJING – Move aside, Dubai. China now has what is billed as the world’s largest building – a vast, wavy rectangular box of glass and steel that will house shops, hotels, offices and a faux ocean beach with a huge LED screen for video sunsets.

The mammoth New Century Global Center that opened last month in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu has 19 million square feet of floor space – or about 329 football fields – edging out the previous record holder, the Dubai airport.

The structure is 546 yards long, 437 yards wide and 109 yards high.

The New Century project is a sign that China’s growth has spread from the country’s more prosperous eastern and southern regions to the west, where wages are lower and the central government has encouraged development with subsidies and tax breaks.

Once fully completed, the centerpiece of the building will be a water park with a 437-yard coast and beaches under a gigantic glass dome. Up to 6,000 visitors at a time will be able to sunbathe, play in a wave pool, sip cocktails or feast on seafood. A 164-yard-by-43-yard LED screen will rise above a section of water with videos of an ocean horizon.

The center will include two five-star hotels as well as high-end boutiques set in a replica of a Mediterranean town under faux blue skies. The shopping section has been open to the public since late June, though the building’s office space has been occupied for some time.