Gulf Construction Online - Dubailand announces key components

UAE Focus

The City of Arabia ... multi-component.

Dubailand announces key components

01 May 2005

The Dh7.2 billion City of Arabia – a brainchild of developer Ilyas and Mustafa Galadari, with the guidance of Dubailand – was unveiled last month.

Occupying a site measuring 20 million sq ft, the ambitious new development will feature a huge shopping mall, predicted to be the world’s largest, and a breathtaking dinosaur theme park developed in collaboration with the Natural History Museum of London.
The Mall of Arabia will have four levels, around 1,000 outlets, its own theatre, and enough parking for 10,000 cars. The size of the mall will be 10 million sq ft GLA (gross leasable area) when completed.
Designed on a circular grid, The Mall of Arabia will feature themed zones to guide shoppers through a cornucopia of shops, cafes, restaurants and entertainment outlets. A vast theatre-cum-auditorium will be the mall’s jaw-dropping centerpiece, and a rooftop garden will serve as a tranquil retreat.
Restless Planet will set a new standard for imaginative theme parks, with three rides, including a special ‘dark ride’, and more than 100 lifelike, actual size ‘animatronic’ dinosaurs. Around 34 different species of dinosaur, designed with complete scientific accuracy, will be programmed to move, roar, and even walk.
The City of Arabia development will also incorporate apartments for more than 35,000 residents and office workers. There will be 34 tower blocks, between 30 and 60 storeys high, and a complex of five-storey apartments fronting a 4 km canal.
The waterway will be lined with more shops, cafes and restaurants in a development called Wadi Walk, and a fleet of water taxis will connect the residential sites of City of Arabia with the mall and theme park. Dubai Light Railway will eventually bring visitors straight to City of Arabia from Dubai International Airport.
Three hotels are in the planning stage: a 400-room, five-star property built over the entrance to The Mall of Arabia; a boutique hotel on an island in the canal; and a 45-storey tower near Dubai’s Emirates Road. Construction of the residential buildings will start in the summer. Ilyas & Mustafa Galadari has appointed Palmer and Turner of Hong Kong as overall project consultants for the City of Arabia development.
Restless Planet and The Mall of Arabia will open in the spring of 2008, while the residential and commercial projects will begin occupation by the end of 2007.
• Dubailand has also announced the launch of a Dh5.5 billion ($1.5 billion) Falcon City of Wonders, which will be developed by a leading local real estate developer. The project will occupy an area of 4 million sq m within Dubai’s up-coming theme park.
The phase 1 of the project is expected to be ready by 2007.
• Astrolab Resort – the region’s first comprehensive environment-based entertainment project is being developed at Dubailand at a cost of Dh500 million ($136 million), officials announced.
The Astrolab Resort will also include a five-star luxury hotel, upmarket furnished apartments, and retail shops and restaurants, among other facilities.
Covering over 1.4 million sq ft of land, the resort will be one of the first new projects to open at the facility and will premiere along with the first operational phase of Dubailand in June 2007.