ARCHIVE: DUBAILAND [PART 1]

[dubai_dude]

NAME: DUBAI LAND (PROJECT)
COST: 18 Billion D
SIZE SQM: LARGER THAN CURRENT SIZE OF BUILT UP DUBAI
ATTRACTIONS; 55 Hotels








Dubai has launched one of the biggest construction projects in the world, the $5 billion Dubailand mixed-use theme park, a Middle East answer to Disneyland.

To be built on two billion square feet of land behind the Emirates Road stretching from the back of Emirates Hills down almost to The Creek, the theme park consists of 45 separate projects from a space exploration exhibition to full-size dinosaur enclosure.

Phase One with the core facilities will be completed within two years, while the progress of the rest of the project depends on the willingness of the private sector to participate in this immense project.

Announcing the project to the Dubai community Crown Prince General Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum sharply called on local businessmen not to keep their money in a bank account but to invest in Dubai.

Dubailand includes the biggest shopping mall in the world, The Mall of Arabia, several new five-star hotels including one built in sand dunes, an indoor ski-slope, a complex of sports stadiums, and an ecological dome to grow vegetation in the heart of the desert.

There will also be an equestrian centre, aviation display, modern art gallery, water amusement park, multi-cultural garden complex, the largest zoo in the Middle East, Pyramids and much more.

However, the most striking thing about Dubailand will be its immense scale. This is a huge area of land and the project will be almost as large as the present built-up area of Dubai.

Dubailand is designed to entertain and amuse the 15 million tourists a year Dubai intends to attract and will vastly add to the hospitality infrastructure of the emirate. This is to be nothing less than the leisure and entertainment hub of the Middle East, and a world-class tourism attraction similar to Disneyland in Florida.

Once again the vision of His Highness has stunned the Dubai business community. But this project has been two years in creation and there will be a spate of announcements about local and international groups' participation in Dubailand over the next few months.

For anyone who wondered what future guests staying in Dubai would do with their time, and how they would spend their money this is the answer. Dubailand is a bold vision of the modern Middle East and its own dynamic will be the key to its success.

i guess they have also started some construction

[dubai_dude]

Dubailand will be twice the size of disneyland in florida and 100x the size of monaco. all the construction will take 10-15 years.
There will be 50 hotels for the project each waith aproximately 1000 rooms. The project will cost $20 billion.

[Dubai_Boy]

They say it will cost 5 billion $ only Hahaha , well to tell you the truth and only the truth and nothing but the truth , its not really the truth ...

a couple of years ago they said the whole Dubai Marina project would cost 10 billion $ , thats like 40 something billion derhams .. then a year ago , i read the newspaper and they said only ONLY the first phase of the project would cost 50 billion derhamds , thats more than 15 - 20 billion dollars ..

-------------------

Now this 5 billion $ price tag they put on the Dubailand project , a project of 2 bilion square feet in size is just not possible , 50 hotels (( most with 1000 rooms )) would cost more than 2 - 3 billion $ alone , you just wait and see , soon enough you will read the paper and they will say foundation works on the Dubailand will cost 5 billion $ and the project as a whole a Whooooping 50 - 75 billion $

[TheBaseTower]

OMFG!!!!!
It's awesome....great one...

[dubai_dude]

Is this a way to attract more people as to telling them that if you buy a property, it would be cheap since the whole project is not costing as much. When the customer gets interested, he might buy the property which might not be the price he expected.

Is this the case?

[dubai_dude]

Is this a way to attract more people as to telling them that if you buy a property, it would be cheap since the whole project is not costing as much. When the customer gets interested, he might buy the property which might not be the price he expected.

Is this the case?

I'll be happy to have a permanent theme park. I am a bit paranoid and I don't like it when there are rides like roller coasters and stuff like that which are set up overnight for a temporary fun fair. I feel there must be at least one screw loose since it was set up so fast - and the whole track will collapse.

I guess this project establishes Dubai as a "fun city" for tourists - and they seem to have forgotten about more important things for the development of the city - such as developing the people themselves instead of the structures around them. There is more consumption than production - if they wanna copy Singapore then they should at least apply Singapore's steps concerning education. They have invested a lot in increasing the skills and talents of their local workforce, and have developed some of the best universities and research institutes in the world. They build things themselves, instead of paying foreigners to do it for them.

Let's hope small projects such as the Knowledge Village, University City, and Tanmia which finds jobs for nationals do something to make us more productive.

[Vespa]

Crazy....

[Qatar4Ever]

Bulldozer girl, i honestly couldnt agree with you anymore. I hate the fact, that Dubai, and the Gulf as a whole is more concerned with material things. I mean the only thing these things are doing are turning us into consumers instead of producers. I honestly believe that these projects that are going up in Dubai will benefit foreigner more than the local nationals. In the long-run these things might harm Emiritie living in Dubai.

Inshalla very soon I will start a thread about this subject, and I will look for very important topics about the more important projects that are going up such as the Education Cities in Dubai and Doha, which their main goal is the development of the local nationals.

I truly believe that those who will prosper in the future are not the ones who build the biggest theme parks or the highest towers, but those who seek to create educational and research institutes that will develop the local labor force.

[Style™]

That is huge!


Building it all at once too? Man! Amazing....inndoor everything!

[TeLaVivi]

Wow, very cool .

[ahmedr]

you just wait and see , soon enough......foundation works on the Dubailand will cost 5 billion $ and the project as a whole a Whooooping 50 - 75 billion $

hehe, i think you're getting just a little bit too excited!

And about that educational stuff which Qatar4Ever and BullDozerGirl brought up, i disagree with what you've both said. Every country has its own way of achieving its vision. Its not like Dubai is officially following Singapore and it should follow it in its every decision. I dont know why you keep repeating that, like its a fact? Actually I dont see any resemblance between the two cities, except maybe for the shopping festival.

Its quite obvious what Dubai is aiming for, its been stated a million times that they want to become the tourism and financial hub of the region and eventually compete globally and i guess they've already accomplished the former (ie succeeded). Success is success, it doesnt matter how you do it as long as it is ethically acceptable. I dont see anything unethical in not pumping as much money into education as in tourism and finance. And as far as i know there are more private schools in Dubai than there are public ones, so the private sector is keeping up with the lack of quality public schooling. Its not upto the government to do everything.

What im trying to say is that, although Dubai supposedly doesnt have the high-quality education, their economy is flourishing like never before, and they have shown no signs of slowing down for a long time now, then why would that ever change?

[Qatar4Ever]

Hi ahmedr..

Well I think you were talking aboud bulldozer girl when u talked about Dubai and Singapore.

I agree with you that Dubai might have achieved teh status of the tourism and financial in the region, even though there is stiff competation from some other countries.

Im not sure about your ethical part. I'm sure there are alot of good people in Dubai who don't see anything ethical in the way some aspects of tourism is being managed. Not to say that other countries in the Gulf havent did the same thing by putting ethics aside for the sake of fast money. I think we all know what were talking about.

U said success, but success for who? For me personally success isn't having the tallest building but success is having people who can design the tallest building.

As for the private schools in Dubai being more than the government schools, thats not a good thing. In Qatar I think the private schools are close in number to the public ones. But just cause a school is private doesnt mean its any good. The reason is there are so many private schools, not cause they are elite educational institutes that produce intellecuts, but because places like Dubai and Qatar have a large population of foreigners. Example in Qatar you have half a dozen school onlyh for palestinian students, none of which are any good. You a gizzalion indian school. Even a couple philipino school... not to mention a Norweign Middle School in Qatar.

When it comes to education, I believe the gov't plays the most important role. It is up to the gov't to invest in the development of its ppl. The private sector, with an exception of few compaines which do develop the local labor force, will rather go and import workers from every corner of the world and have them work. Which does have a large effect on the economy, ex. the money they make goes back to their home country rather than the local economy..

anyways i think we all kinda got away from the topic of this thread and Im sure Dubai-Dude wont like it. Sorry 7ababi!! Inshalla ill make some time to open a thread about this stuff...
tc guys..

[Jan]

This city really never fails to amaze me. It's on the number 1 spot on the list of places to visit.

[sasha ITALIA]

WOW!!!!

[Darkknight]

oh my god!!!! this project is out of proportion!!!!!! Amazing!! pryin it gets built!!!

Abt the universities and stuff. The uae does have excellent universities. Zayed uni and the american university of sharjah and soo oon. How come??!! They have the money billions of it. They bring in the best equipment and the best professors from USA and so oon. The only problem is when people go foir degrees they go for the name of the university. Name and prestige. Now since these universities are new thats what they lack. Otherwse their education is excellent. It shows in the number of entrepreneurs that the UAE creates.

[Dubai_Boy]

Darkknight , if anybody local or expat in the UAE think they will have to end up working abroad they get their degree from the UK , USA , AUSTRALIA OR NEWZEALAND . But some one like me , i1m studying to be a civil engineer at the HCT for men here in Abu Dhabi , and i know i will work for the UAE , its extremly good pay :P and i simply love it here , if i do get bored i will just travel

But yes my college is fulll of professors from the UK ireland scotland USA australia and hungry too !! a huge mix of nationalities

[empersouf]

Yes, it's really huge and amazing, but why are those names so unoriginal.

[Trances]

There have been adds for this on TV all this weekend
I dont usally watch tv but i dont ahve PC at home and was sick in bed this weekend
So are these adds new or ahve they been shown for some time
The adds were asking to investement for DUbai Land on channel 33 ( only one my TV gets )

[Trances]

Vision for Dubailand becomes clearer

Vision for Dubailand becomes clearer
Since its announcement at the tail end of last year, the construction industry has been salivating over the sheer volume of potential work in the pipeline. It is well known that the project is massive, some 200 million m2 to be precise but many of the details have yet to be finalised. Construction Week reveals what has been completed, announced and what is being planned.

Like many other mega projects in Dubai, Dubailand will be an amalgamation of developments undertaken by separate property developers. These separate projects are of a significant size. “We’re not selling plots of land for say a hotel, or building, we’re selling mega developments. On average each one is about 1 million m2, but some are larger, Dubai Sports City is 5 million m2,” says Salem bin Dasmal, chief executive officer, Dubailand.

With a number of individual components and developers the projects will be mixed use and incorporate a range of activities and attractions. This is not to say that developers will not be given guidelines. There is a clear development plan for Dubailand, with specific zones and attractions available for developers. These include themed attractions offering various forms of entertainment, sporting venues, eco related developments as the main part of the zone as well as the construction of associated facilities such as hotels and serviced apartments.

Such a large project, using an array of different developers places great pressure on the developments managers. “It is a major challenge. People have committed to develop the project to the highest standards with Dubai’s leaders. I have to look at it from a business perspective, fine they are promising to our leader, but what if they don’t keep their promises, so we structure contracts that have sufficient flexibility in addition to guidelines both from a mass-planning perspective, and from a look and feel perspective that allows that project to align itself closely what Dubailand is all about,” says bin Damsal.

As with any project risks are involved. The two main areas of risk are that the project won’t attract as many visitors as initially hoped, or that it may cost more money to develop than planned. “The way we [Dubailand] can help them achieve it is to support them from a cost perspective, so we shall try and reduce the costs as much as practicable. We do not want the development to make a loss, we want it to sustain itself; so land, leases and sales will be done at a rate we feel will be very supportive of the development,” says bin Dasmal. “In some cases theme parks across the world are given away for free. I am not saying we will do that, but what we will do is to take into consideration that these projects need support and we will support them,” he adds.

Although Dubailand was just announced last year, several parts of the developments are already well advanced. One of the first to be complete is Global Village, which is moving from Dubai Festival City to Dubailand and will be ready for Dubai Shopping Festival 2005. “For the 30 days of the shopping festival each year the cornerstone of Dubailand will be Global Village. The new location will allow the event to quadruple in size,” says bin Dasmal.

Another component that is already well advanced is the Autodrome. Developed by Union Properties, the Formula One capable racetrack was launched on 29th March this year and will stage it first race later this year in October. The spectator stadium is currently being completed. Likewise Arabian Ranches a residential component comprising of villas developed by Emaar is also well advanced.

Other components are still very much in the preliminary stages. “We have already signed a number of other contracts, so we anticipate opening some major components in the next two to three years,” says bin Dasmal. These include: An Aqua Park, backed by a Saudi investor Ali Shedri; Dubai Sunny Mountain Ski Resort backed by international developers, the 32 Group; Dubailand’s first theme park, Arabian Legends, financed by GFH. Completion for these projects is slated for any time between end-2006 and mid-2007.

Also in the preliminary phase is Dubai Sports City, comprising of Olympic-standard stadiums, tracks and swimming pools. Altogether there will be four major stadiums seating about 35000 spectators capable of hosting hockey, rugby, football and cricket. A multipurpose indoor stadium is also planned. “Sports City will host its first event at the end of 2005 and beginning of 2006,” says bin Dasmal. For the long-term, “we are earmarking 2020 as when we could potentially host the Olympics,” bin Dasmal adds.

A separate sporting facility is the Plantation, Polo and Equestrian Centre. This is another massive project with four full size polo fields, several paddocks for show jumping and dressage as well as a man made cross-country horse competition complete with ditches, hills and other obstacles.

According to bin Dasmal these projects have been signed and there is no turning back. “In the contracts developers have agreed penalties for non-delivery. We obviously don’t want it to reach that stage, but these things can happen, so we have created conditions in the contract to allow us to apply penalties should a developer fail to meet the delivery time line. In the worst case scenario, if they are unable to deliver despite penalties then we would intervene, as we need the project to succeed at the end of the day, so we will either introduce new investors to the project or we will take over the management,” says bin Dasmal. “We want this to be a private sector development so we will only intervene in extreme cases where intervention is needed to get a project back on track and meet its delivery time.

A number of components are still very much in the planning stages and have yet to be announced. The projects include: A bazaar; another theme park based on the civilisations of the world and the future; niche retail developments including the region’s first factory outlet; extreme sports facilities and Dubai’s new zoo.

A development as large as Dubailand requires a great deal of infrastructure in order to make it a success. “We are comfortable that DEWA will be able to meet our needs and we are working closely with them to incorporate our requirements into their forward planning for the needs of Dubai Emirate as a whole. This does not just include potable water. Much of our requirements can be serviced through recycled water that could be produced using Dubailand’s sewerage plants,” says bin Dasmal.

Transportation is another major factor. With so many visitors expected, Emirates Road and other nearby arteries will be placed under tremendous strain. At present, Emirates Road is only three lanes on either side but plans have been made to expand it to five lanes on either side. New interchanges will also be built to allow traffic to flow freely into the development will also be built along with an internal ring road connecting up the various zones. “In the master plan of the development we have completely master planned the transportation system, which means allocation for monorail, tram, bus routes taxi routes, stops etc, it is all fully integrated,” says bin Dasmal. The project will also link into the planned monorail system as Phase One will run along Emirates Road, and Phase Two runs along the Creek up to Dubailand.

Announced projects
- Plantation equestrian and Polo Club
- Dubailand Downtown
- Aqua Dubai
- Arabian Legends
- Dubai Sunny Mountain and Ski Dome
- Dubai Global Village
- Arabian Ranches
- Dubai Autodrome
- Emarat Sports Centre
- Dubai Sports City
- Dubai Heritage Vision

Committed Projects
- Virtual Games World
- Woman’s World
- Flea Market
- Space Hotel
- Future World
- Aviation Hotel
- Gardens of the World
- Factory Outlets




http://www.itp.net/business/features...y=construction