A NEW $1.6-billion hotel and conference/expo centre has been proposed for the upcoming 2022 Fifa World Cup in Doha, Qatar. The Silver Pearl Hotel calls for a 1,000 plus-room luxury property to be located 1.5 km offshore near Doha.

ARCADIS, one of the world’s leading natural and built asset design and consultancy firms, said it has completed the acquisition of two major construction players in the region, Hyder Consulting and Callison.

BARWA Real Estate Group is set to build a QR500-million ($137.1 million) mall, Alaateda, featuring as many as 650 retails shops, close to the under-construction Msheireb Downtown Doha project, according to a report. The 155,000-sq-m project will be completed within 30 months, said the Gulf Times report.

TURKISH ceramics pioneer Kaleseramik (Kale) is planning to open 16 new showrooms next year in countries including Bahrain, Kenya, Ghana, Kuwait and Iraq, where all Kale brands will be offered in addition to Kale-owned Italian brands, Edilcuoghi, Edilgres and Campani.

BAGNODESIGN, a key designer and manufacturer of bathroom solutions, has opened a new luxury bathroom showroom in Qatar, which includes its relocated Architecture and Design (A&D) Centre. The new showroom is located on Doha’s main Airport Road and features the latest bathroom design trends.

QATAR’S Public Works Authority (Ashghal) has announced plans to launch 80 new infrastructure projects across the country during the 2014-15 period with a special focus on its road and sewerage network upgradation, said a report.

QATAR has awarded QR1.08 billion ($290 million) worth of healthcare projects including the construction of four new health centres besides expansion work related to two hospitals in the capital Doha, said a report in The Peninsula.

KUWAIT has selected a consortium to carry out the expansion of the country’s only international airport. A consortium of Kuwait’s Kharafi National and Turkey’s Limak Holding, which submitted the lowest bid of $4.8 billion, has been appointed to undertake the mega airport project.

QATAR has so far awarded construction contracts worth a total of $4.22 billion for its New Port project, located south of Doha, which is expected to be completed by 2020, said a report in The Peninsula. One of the largest infrastructure projects, the development is being built on a sprawling 26-sq-km area at an estimated cost of $7.41 billion.

Kahramaa’s first solar plant on target THE first solar power plant of Qatar General Electricity and Water Company (Kahramaa), with 15 MW capacity, is set to begin operation before 2016, a senior official of the utility distributor said.

MANNAI Auto Group’s Heavy Equipment Division (HED) has launched JCB’s most powerful tracked excavator, the top-of-the-line JS500, in Qatar. The JCB JS500 has an engine rated at 305 hp at 2,000 rpm (revolutions per minute). This powers a 7.10-m-long heavy-duty mono boom and 4.76-m dipper.

INFRASTRUCTURE projects related to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar are expected to gather pace after Fifa’s ethics committee gave the go-ahead for the event, rejecting corruption claims. The committee said it could find no grounds for reopening the controversial bidding process.

APR Energy, a provider of customised power solutions, used its proprietary modular system of generators and transformers to prepare in less than 20 days a site earmarked for backup power generation in Oman.

QATAR is working on three major road development projects worth more than QR9.4 billion ($2.54 billion), said a report. These are the 9.

VICON is delivering several building modelling information (BIM) solutions to one of the largest multi-purpose projects currently under construction in Cairo, Egypt. The BIM services including implementation and management are aimed at handling the complexity and size of Qatari Diar’s Nile Corniche project, which stands 140 m tall.

WORK  on a project to build 1,560 homes in the Southern Governorate in Bahrain at a cost of BD75.56 million ($198.4 million) will start soon.

HILL International, the global leader in managing construction risk, has received a contract from Ithmar Development Company to provide project management services linked to the Bahrain Affordable Housing Public-Private Partnership (PPP) project. The three-year contract has an estimated value to Hill of approximately $4.3 million.