The idea that the “end is nigh” is one that has been repeated for centuries. We can take some comfort in the fact that every generation has had people who declared that their era would be humanity’s last and that — so far — all of them have been proved wrong.
Vivos xPoint: the world’s largest community of doomsday shelters
Some people, however — people with means — aren’t taking any chances. This has created a gap in the market for nuclear fallout shelters that has been happily filled by the California-based Vivos Group, which creates whole communities of luxury underground bunkers that allow investors and their families to ride out the apocalypse in comfort and style.
Vivos xPoint, the company’s newest community, is also its grandest, and with 575 units it is being billed as the largest underground bunker community on the planet. The community is able to house up to 5,000 people and can withstand a 500,000-pound explosion.
“This is the place you will want to be when the s**t hits the fan,” reads a statement on the company’s website.
Located in South Dakota, the bunkers that comprise Vivos xPoint were built in 1942 by the military, which used the property for munitions storage. The campus fell out of use in 1967, when the bunkers were also gutted and cleared of all military supplies, paving the way for Vivos to acquire the property in 2016.
The shelters range in size, varying between 60 and 80 feet in length, with a uniform width of around 26 feet. Vivos advertises that the shelters are capacious enough to store a year’s worth of supplies.
Vivos’s website presents renderings of what the bunkers might look like post-renovation. The windows here have been replaced with LED screens to ensure that residents won’t miss out on the sky and sun.
So far, the bunkers are just bare, concrete spaces, but Vivos offers renovation services for those who want to make their Brutalist hobbit hole just a bit more cozy. Electricity and plumbing are yet to be introduced to the properties, but these amenities are in the works. The company has set aside a single bunker they hope to convert into a school and another for use as a general store.
Given its rawness, buying a unit at Vivos xPoint isn’t cheap. The company is asking for a $25,000 down payment and then $1,000 per year after that to maintain the property. Perhaps this is the reason nobody has moved in yet. In any event, while the community doesn’t appear very lively right now, it is destined to become the world’s most vibrant cultural hub once every other site of human habitation is destroyed.
All images via Business Insider