Now housed within the new, 35-story glass tower, the consulate was erected at the price of practically $300 million, a sum that drew criticism in Turkey in 2021, when students protested the high cost of housing. It’s reportedly Turkey’s most costly international mission. Its curving facade was impressed by the crescent on the Turkish flag, whereas its tulip-shaped prime is a nod to the nation’s nationwide flower, based on the structure agency that designed it. The constructing consists of not solely consular workplaces, however residences, a prayer room, an exhibition house and an auditorium, based on its architects.
Metropolis information reveal issues for months earlier than Mr. Erdogan’s go to in 2021 as Turkish authorities contractors sought to achieve metropolis approval to finish and occupy the constructing. On July 26, 2021, the Hearth Division rejected the fireplace safety plan submitted by a marketing consultant for the Turkish authorities, asking for adjustments. Across the similar time, the Buildings Division issued a violation after a glass panel on the seventeenth flooring fell off and plummeted 10 tales.
Solely 10 days earlier than Mr. Erdogan was to preside over the opening of the brand new constructing, a senior Hearth Division official knowledgeable Sparc Hearth Safety Engineering, a marketing consultant on the constructing mission, that the division wouldn’t object to a short lived certificates of occupancy that may enable the constructing for use if the marketing consultant affirmed that the alarm system complied with town constructing code, the information present.
However per week later, on Sept. 17, the marketing consultant reported quite a few “deficiencies” involving smoke detectors, elevators, followers, doorways and different points. Sparc’s president informed town that the constructing can be staffed with guards on “fireplace watch” till the issues had been resolved. The constructing remains to be working below a short lived certificates of occupancy, information present.
In a ceremony three days later, on Monday, Sept. 20, Mr. Erdogan offered the brand new consulate to the general public and the press, calling it “a masterpiece” that may be a haven for American Muslims.
In Could of this 12 months, after a man used a metal bar to shatter a number of of the consulate’s home windows and threaten its safety guards — an act the Turkish president called terrorism — Mr. Adams showed up in person to examine the harm.