Dubai plans $1.6-billion ''biggest tourism project'' in Mideast

Published March 4th, 2001 - 02:00 GMT
Al Bawaba
Al Bawaba

The private sector in the Gulf leisure hub of Dubai plans to build "the biggest tourism and commercial project" in the Middle East, the emirate's crown prince announced. 

 

Dubai's latest venture will cost six billion dirhams ($1.6 billion), newspapers reported Sunday, March 3. 

 

"This is a unique project at a regional level," Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al-Makhtoum said at the opening ceremony late Thursday of Dubai's annual shopping festival, without giving a launch date or costs. 

 

The crown prince said the landmark project named Dubai Festival City will aim "to attract visitors from within and outside the United Arab Emirates (UAE) throughout the year." 

 

It marks "a new phase for quality projects executed by the national private sector on UAE land and with the involvement of its people," he said of the project to be executed by the local Abdullah Al-Futaim Group. 

 

The local Abdullah al-Futtaim Group will start construction immediately on Dubai Festival City, and work is due "to be completed in 2004 at a cost of six billion dirhams," Gulf News said. 

 

The landmark project will feature a 55-storey tower, an 8,000-capacity amphitheatre, 80 restaurants, shops, hotels, cinemas, offices and apartments built along a four-kilometer-long (2.5-mile-long) stretch of Dubai's southern creekside. 

 

The "city" will be built around four giant cascading waterfalls, a giant dock for boats and a "long and winding canal evoking the ambience of Naples". 

 

"The buildings will be coloured in a range of oranges, russets, whites, purples and greens to match the desert colours at all times of the day," architect Jon Jerde said, dubbing the project a "creation of environment". 

 

The announcement was made and a model of the development unveiled during a huge fireworks and laser show at the site of the future project in a desert plot on the creek which divides the city of Dubai. 

 

With its oil resources running out, the southern Gulf emirate has launched a massive tourism and leisure drive that up until the Festival City project was financed by the government. 

 

The same creek-side plot was to have been used for a $750-million theme park venture called Magic World that was shelved in 1998 "for market reasons." 

 

The US engineering giant Bechtel was commissioned by the Dubai civil aviation department to provide design and construction management services for the theme park, which was to have opened this year. — (AFP, Dubai) 

 

© Agence France Presse 2001

© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)

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