Dubai 2016

Found this feature article in Time Out Dubai on what we can expect to see in Dubai in 10 years time. Enjoy!



The world’s tallest tower

By Jeremy Lawrence, June 2006

At over 50 levels already and rising by an average of a level every four days, the colossal Burj Dubai is on schedule for its 2008 completion target. It’s an incredible albeit controversial feat of human endeavour as 3,000 workers toil day and night to meet the deadline for the signature piece of the US$20 billion Downtown project.



As Dubai races ahead in its audacious quest to build the world’s tallest tower, the exact height of the final structure is still a closely-guarded secret. Most predictions have the final height at around 810 meters tall – substantially bigger than the current 509 metres of Taipei’s 101 tower, and the design is such that – to a certain extent – they can keep adding floors if necessary.

Designed by Chicago-based architects Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, Burj Dubai comprises three sections set around a central core. The spiraling pattern tapers as the building rises, culminating in a piercing spire that will house communications equipment. The interior will include an Armani Hotel, 700 private apartments and corporate offices. There will also be swimming pools (including an outdoor one on the 78th floor – yikes) and an observation platform 124 floors up.

To find out how you go about building the world’s biggest building on sand (isn’t there a parable about that?), Time Out donned a hard hat and visited the construction site with Greg Sang, Assistant Director of Projects at Emaar.

‘Well for one thing it is not correct that it is built on sand,’ he says. ‘The sand layer is only around one metre deep and is underlain by sandstones.’ The foundations in this hard bed are staggering – 200 piles are bored to a depth of 50 metres and tied together by a 3.7 metre-thick concrete raft, which supports the super structure. That’s a lot of concrete. In fact, according to Emaar boffins, it’s the equivalent to the weight of 100,000 elephants.

Building the world’s tallest tower is a potentially risky business, but Greg claims the Burj will be ready for the worst of eventualities. ‘We have taken everything into account you can think of,’ says Greg. ‘Our prime designers, structural engineers and architects are from Chicago and they were involved in a lot of the post 9-11 studies, so they are very clued in on evacuation. We have actually incorporated a lot of things into the design of the building that were included in the reports that came out post 9-11. We’ve considered lots of different scenarios. It has been designed to last at least 100 years and a lot of things can happen in 100 years.’

Indeed they can. One thing that could happen sooner or later is that someone might build a taller tower. Kuwait and Bahrain have already made speculative announcements that they aim to top the mystical 1,000 metre mark. Nakheel’s Waterfront Al Burj will be at least 700 metres tall and probably substantially higher. Wouldn’t that be a disaster for Emaar? ‘Talk is cheap,’ retorts Greg, confidently. ‘We’re the only ones who have broken ground and started a project. I have no doubts that at some point in time someone will come along and build something taller than the Burj, but for the time being, we’re going to finish and have the title of the world’s tallest building for quite a few years.’

So there you have it. The world’s tallest tower – ‘history rising’, according to the worryingly apocalyptic billboard on the edge of the site – right here in Dubai.

Lest we forget, Burj Dubai is just the centrepiece to the staggeringly huge Downtown project. This 22 million square feet development includes the world’s largest shopping mall, a business hub, the ‘old town’, apartments and canals. Emaar promises a 24-hour lifestyle and a downtown city buzz to rival that of New York or London – although presumably a cleaned up version without the night buses, dealers and police patrols. Who knows what it will look like in the final analysis, but it will be awesome in scale, very expensive, and unlike anything else on the planet. Very Dubai, in fact.



Fact sheet
(1) Burj Dubai will be at least 800 metres tall.

(2) The tip of the spire will be visible 60 miles away.

(3) The entire project will cost Dhs74 billion.

(4) Burj Dubai will feature the world’s fastest elevator – a stomach turning 40mph.

(5) The tower’s water system will supply an average of 946,000 litres per day.

(6) The water from condensation that forms on the outside of the tower will be collected and used for the landscaping.

(7) Laid end to end, the steel rebar used for construction would extend a quarter of the way around the world.



2016 travel
Unsurprisingly, considering the gargantuan developments planned for Dubai, the city's already buckling infrastructure is going to be radically overhauled to cope with the expected influx. The most major of these is the Dubai World Central airport at Jebel Ali. At 140 square kilometres and with an expected capacity of 120 million passengers a year, it will be the largest airport in the world. Michael Profit, CEO of Logistic City, which is overseeing the operation, thinks the project will ‘make Dubai a central, strategic hub between east and west by bringing together the ninth largest port in the world and the largest airport in the world.’ Meanwhile, Sheikh Ahmed, president of the Department of Civil Aviation which is overseeing the project, called the proposed complex ‘a smart city – a beacon of future living and working environments.’ Construction begins this October and is expected to be finished by 2012 when 750,000 people are predicted to be living there.

While the airport will help to import people from all over the world, the metro system will (hopefully) ensure Dubai’s residents and tourists aren’t gridlocked in traffic. Costing Dhs14.3billion and featuring 70km of track spread across 57 stations, the metro system will be split over two lines and is set to be operational from 2009. The red line will run from Jebel Ali to Salahuddin Road close to Al Ghurair centre while the Green line will go from Al Ittihad square through to Rashidiya bus station. According to Adnan Al Hannadi, Director of the Rail Construction Department, Dubai ‘needed a fast, mass transit transport system and the metro is the perfect solution.’ The first stage will be complete by September 2009 and will facilitate 600,000 passengers a day with this capacity doubling by 2020. The metro is also likely to be extended to include Abu Dhabi and the Dubai World Central airport, while further routes may also be opened into Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah. The bus and road system will also be overhauled – and where possible – integrated with existing systems. Park and Ride stations will be built to allow easy and air-conditioned access to the metro while each station will have its own dedicated bus stop and taxi drop. Alongside this, the metro, bus, taxi and parking meters will share the same ticketing system, unifying Dubai’s transport system. Crossing the Creek by road will also be eased thanks to a 13-lane bridge connecting Bur Dubai with Deira, while the Garhoud Bridge will be extended to cater for 16,000 vehicles on its 14 lanes.



What if… The economic bubble bursts?
David Butter, Editor of The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Business Middle East.

What if the economy slows down? That’s the big question. There is a nagging doubt as to how long this level of growth will continue. Will the next huge project be the one that is a step too far? Up until now the record has been good and anyone who has doubted the feasibility of previous projects has been proved wrong. If there were a real snarl down the line, such as with the infrastructure – water, power, road networks etc – not being able to keep pace with growth, that would be a big problem for Dubai’s reputation. There is also an issue with Dubai’s management model. There’s not a huge amount of transparency in relation to the key decision makers. Given the scale and multiplicity of projects on the table, you could question whether the personalised model for decision-making is going to be able to cope. That said, these doubts have been expressed before and Dubai has continued to grow, regardless.

What about the lack of a cast iron legal framework? Are businesses wary of the lack of guarantees? Yes, but I don’t think there have been any major problems. The factors that businesses are struggling with are the rising costs, recruitment problems, and instances of labour unrest. They’re all symptoms, perhaps, of the machine getting too big and going out of control.

Is there a danger that the economy might overheat? This sort of double-digit growth is a risk, but it could be that it’s just in a developmental phase that will slow down naturally. The underlying reason for this phenomenal growth phase is to establish something of lasting significance.

What’s your opinion on these staggering projects – they’re incredible but are they economically credible? I would have nagging doubts about certain aspects of the bigger projects. Build quality is one issue – if there are problems, what will the impact be on Dubai’s reputation? We’ll just have to see. The environmental impact of development will be another interesting outcome.

What is Dubai doing right? It has provided reasons for people to go there and it has turned itself into a destination. But the first good move they made was the creation of Jebel Ali Free Zone. That was the big strategic move that set the benchmark for the future. Trade underpins the subsequent developments. It’s at the bedrock of the Dubai economic miracle.

What about the risk of regional instability? Well it’s something that has to be taken into account, but I don’t think it’s a deal breaker. Regional wars and conflicts have been going on non-stop for many years and if anything, they have been to the benefit of Dubai. The UAE is seen as a safe haven – it has a very long track record of being a secure place to live and do business.

What’s your gut feeling regarding the future development of Dubai? Over the next ten years there may be some scaling down of the present plans. Maybe nothing drastic, but there is likely to be some adjustment to the oil markets. If prices fell sharply there would be some fallout. There might also be some rescaling to take into account of what the infrastructure can actually cope with.


The world’s biggest theme park

By Jeremy Lawrence, June 2006

Dubai wants 15 million visitors a year by 2010. The big question is not just how to attract them, but what they will do once they land. Developers think they have the answer. Out in the desert they are building a theme park like no other on the planet. Welcome to Dubailand...



The picture in the glossy brochure advertising Dubailand reveals the thinking behind Dubai’s extraordinary ambition. Place the UAE at the centre of a map and draw a circle round it that encompasses the destinations you can fly to in six hours: the resulting area includes North Africa (four hours), the Asian subcontinent (three), Central Asia (six) and Europe (six). That’s an awful lot of people and a lot of potential customers for Dubai PLC. But what, aside from sunbathing and shopping, will they do when they get here? Answer: they’ll visit a gigantic theme park in the middle of the desert, designed to keep the 15 million annual visitors Dubai hopes to attract by 2010 coming back for more.

They will certainly need a few visits to get round it. Dubailand will eventually cover three billion square feet and contain, in the words of the brochure, ‘five amazing worlds: one amazing opportunity.’ Attraction World will cost Dhs9 billion and will offer theme parks, water parks and other family attractions. Highlights will include Dubai Sunny Mountain Ski Dome – a gigantic indoor snow park, as if one wasn’t already enough; Theme Park – lots of rollercoasters and white-knuckle rides; and Time Out’s favourite thing in the whole world ever, Falcon City of Wonders. This gloriously named project includes replicas of five wonders of the world plus the Eiffel Tower Hotel and the Pyramids – complete with on-site parking.

It is rumoured that Dubai will use Sports and Outdoor World to launch a bid for the Olympics in 2020. The weather will probably be the biggest obstacle to them grabbing the torch, but the dates have been moved before and they will certainly have the facilities. Four giant-sized stadiums, another four golf courses, three polo fields and an extreme sports centre are all part of the Dhs4 billion zone.

The creation of Eco-tourism World is slightly ironic given that Dubailand will flatten three billion square feet of pristine desert, but still, the interactive science museum, safari park and desert vegetation will hopefully be as educating as they are entertaining. Although there will presumably be some debate over the ethics of keeping non-indigenous animals in such an extreme environment, hopefully it will at least mark the end of the Dubai Zoo. Topping the lot in the bizarre stakes (apart from Falcon City) is Tropical Village, which contains ‘a rainforest with different unique species and trees, sandy beaches, lagoons and waterfalls.’ Quite how Dubai will go about creating ‘different unique species’ is beyond us, but we’re hoping for a mad scientist splicing a frog’s DNA with a horse’s to create a frorse.

Leisure & Vacation World appears to be slightly more realistic. Spas and holistic treatments will make up the series of themed spa resorts, including the Thai Express Resort – no comment – the Indian Theme Resort and the Nubian Valley, which is modelled on old rural Egyptian civilization.

Last but by no means least, Downtown Retail & Entertainment World features another of Time Out’s favourite projects: Restless Planet – a Jurassic Park-esque attraction featuring ‘animated dinosaur replicas in a lifelike environment.’ One wonders if the possibility of using real dinosaurs wasn’t discussed at some point during the planning stage. Mall of Arabia will be another ‘world’s biggest’ feather in Dubai’s cap, taking the prize for being the largest shopping centre on the planet. The 53 million square foot project will also contain a restaurant complex, Teen World – probably featuring lots of adolescents pretending to be bored – and a Virtual Games World, presumably resplendent with computer oddballs. Blessed are the geek at Retail World.

Many projects in the city have the clichéd city-within-a-city tag, but given the sheer physical size of Dubailand, the label does apply. It will therefore develop in stages, although it is expected to be largely completed at some point between 2015 and 2018 with other projects added along the way.



Fact sheet
(1) The project is expected to cost in the region of Dhs74 billion.

(2) It will be twice the size of the Walt Disney World Resort.

(3) The original plans were scaled up by 50 per cent after the favourable reaction from the private sector.

(4) The Great Dubai Wheel – the city’s answer to the London Eye – will be the world’s largest observation wheel.

(5) Rumours that Dubailand will be temperature controlled outdoors thanks to an air-conditioned mist are as yet unconfirmed.



What if… The tourists don’t come
Gemma Hornett, Editor of Arabian Travel News.

Tourism growth in Dubai is 17 per cent per annum, and almost 15 million visitors are expected by 2010 – can this be sustained? In a word, no. It will certainly slow down at some stage. People are curious about Dubai right now, but it’s in danger of becoming a one-stop destination – people who have been here on holiday once aren’t guaranteed to come again. The price of this aggressive development – the traffic problems and the cranes – could also put people off coming back. But, you cannot dismiss what they have achieved so far, there is nowhere else in the world growing at such a rate. The only comparison you could make is Spain in the 1960s and ’70s – but even then it was attracting tourists from Europe – not from around the world.

By 2016 there will be well over 100,000 new hotel rooms. Will there be people to fill them? It all boils down to supply and demand. At the moment there are not enough rooms to go around and hotels can charge basically whatever they want – when there is more competition the prices will have to drop or there will be rooms left vacant. Just like the rent in the city, things should plateau.

What if people don’t come to Dubai? The danger is that if the right numbers don’t come, the tour operators in Europe will catch on very quickly and we’ll see a lot of the bargain basement holiday offers in travel agents’ shop windows – like you get to Costa Del Sol. They will do package deals and put on charter flights and the city could be seen as a downmarket destination.

How will Dubailand change the way the city is seen? I see Dubai becoming like Las Vegas – without the gambling of course. It depends on how Dubailand is marketed and whether people will see it as the Middle East’s Disney World; if they do I’m sure it will attract families from around the world. I don’t think it will become the single attraction like Disney World in Orlando though, because so much more will be on offer in the emirate.

Why has Dubai been so successful so far? It has been marketed extremely well. It’s on TV, it’s in newspapers and magazines – everyone has heard of Dubai and they are intrigued to come and see the city for themselves. It’s a question of how long this interest lasts.


The cities in the sea

By Jeremy Lawrence, June 2006

The offshore Nakheel projects kickstarted the breathtaking, logic defying, bloody-minded scale of Dubai’s ambition. Books can, and will, be written about the Jumeirah, Jebel Ali and Deira Palms, together with the World and proposed Waterfront development. What conclusions they will draw in 2016 is still anybody’s guess...



When the plans to build Palm Jumierah were unveiled back in 2001, they seemed fanciful at best. But fast forward just five years and the keys to the first batches of villas will be handed over as early as November, all thanks to a remarkable mixture of money, marketing, ingenuity and ambition. The smallest of the Palms by a considerable distance, Palm Jumeirah will still add almost 80km to Dubai’s coastline and will house 32 hotels, 2,500 apartments, 70,000 residents and 1,500 beachside villas. Donald Trump has also put his name to a tower on the trunk where a highway, canal and monorail will help transport people from one end to the other of the ‘Golden Mile’.

Further down the coast, Palm Jebel Ali – which is roughly 50 per cent bigger than Palm Jumeirah – will include six marinas, a sea village, water park and homes built on stilts between the fronds and the crescent. The crescent itself is built into the shape of a line of poetry written by Sheikh Mohammed.

And if that weren’t enough Palms for one coastline, Nakheel has also announced its intention to build Palm Deira, which dwarves the other two in scale. 400km of coastline and 8,000 villas will be created in a development that Nakheel claim will be larger than Paris. Rumours have abounded that the project’s completion date has been put back considerably, although Nakheel maintains that construction is running smoothly.

One project that is very much up and running is The World. 90 per cent of the reclamation work has been done on the 300 islands 4km from the coast of Dubai. If you have between 10 and 45 million US dollars, you own a boat or a helicopter, and you pass Nakheel’s screening policy, then you could own a slice of this millionaire’s play- ground. And then you can do anything you want with it. Goldfinger, eat your heart out.

The final piece in the Nakheel jigsaw puzzle is The Waterfront. Arching around Palm Jebel Ali, the huge retail, commercial and residential project, which will be bigger than Manhattan, is set to be the crowning glory of Nakheel’s empire. Nakheel has claimed that up to 750,000 people will live and work on the mixeduse site. The Waterfront also includes Al Burj, a tower that Nakheel will only say ‘will be one of the tallest towers in the world’, though speculation persists that they will try to top the Burj Dubai. Stretching behind the Waterfront inland, the Arabian Canal will snake through Jebel Ali, sweeping round towards Dubai and featuring waterside houses and leisure facilities.

The big question is what sort of ecological footprint these massive developments will leave on the Gulf. There are two schools of thought: one is that the impact will be nothing short of devastating because it upsets the natural balance of nature. The other view is that the ten-year ecological blip that results from construction is nothing compared with the long-term benefits to the Gulf waters. ‘This morning we were up at Palm Jebel Ali,’ says Nakheel’s Senior Environmental engineer, Shaun Lenehan, who naturally adheres to the latter point of view. ‘The sea grass is thick, we saw turtles and you can see dolphins – all in the shadow of Palm Jebel Ali. We’ve found that when you put rock down there, seaweed, algae, coral, barnacles will all grow. Marine life is going crackers out there.’ He also claims that environmental considerations are part of the master plan. ‘Where we have to disturb natural habitats we will compensate by creating other sanctuary areas,’ he says.

There’s also a popular myth that Palm Jumeirah has already suffered from subsidence – a result of the reclaimed ground settling. Lenehan is adamant that this is not the case. ‘After dumping rocks and dredging sand, the resulting surface is compacted to make sure it is rock solid. The foundations are stronger than they are on the mainland,’ he argues. He is also keen to point out that extensive research was carried out to ascertain the dangers of seismic activity, rising sea levels and storm activity. ‘Our breakwater design was modelled in Holland in airplane hangers,’ he explains. ‘We set up wave environment simulators to see how the breakwater would handle storms. We’ve taken into account one in a hundred year storms, king tides, predicted sea level rises… These weren’t calculations done on an abacus or calculator.’ You’d hope so, given the size and cost of the projects.

But given a project of this scale, and the fact that developers tend to do a good line in burying negative news stories, urban myths are bound to do the rounds. Some of them, such as whether changes to the tide from building activity could result in Nakheel having to permanently dredge certain offshore waters, could have a serious impact on consumer confidence – Lenehan’s response to that particular rumour, by the way, is that Nakheel is trying to build designs that will require minimal maintenance. On the other hand, celebrity gossip, such as who has and hasn’t bought – which according to Nakheel PR and Marketing Executive Michela Chiappa is yes for most of the England football team, and no to Rod Stewart, Angelina Jolie and Mick Jagger – all serves to keep Dubai in the international media spotlight. And ultimately, the world’s interest in these extraordinary developments is the real reason for building them.

Do the Nakheel bosses have sleepless nights worrying about how these revolutionary projects will actually work? In the final analysis they will have to ensure that they do, says Lenehan. ‘It’s in the longterm interest of Dubai. We’re not a standard property developer that makes money then walks away. Our boss is Sheikh Mohammed and he’s here for the rest of his life, so he doesn’t want to create developments that will give him problems. He needs them to be the best they can be.’

Stick around for another ten years and we may be just starting to know whether they got their sums right.



Fact sheet
(1) Nakheel has US$30 billion of investments in Dubai-based projects.

(2) 326 million cubic meters of sand have been moved to form the islands of the World.

(3) The developments will be visible to the naked eye from space.

(4) 1,200 km of beachfront will be added to Dubai’s coastline.

(5) There are some 150 – 200 planned hotel plots on the Waterfront.

(6) The first phase of the Waterfront sold out for Dhs13 billion in five days.

(7) The remains of two fighter planes, two jets and seven barges have been dropped onto the sea floor by Palm Jumeirah to attract marine life and create an underwater theme park for divers.

(8) Villas on Palm Jumeirah sold out in 72 hours.



What if… it harms the environment?
Wael Hmaiden, Arab World Campaigner for Greenpeace.

What are the environmental impacts of Dubai’s rapid development? Any development has an impact on the environment. This is down to two issues – how sustainable this development is, and how fast it is happening. Fast developments, like Dubai, have a bigger impact. This city is using vast amounts of intensive energy, contributing to climate change.

It has been argued that the projects are sustainable developments – what is your opinion on this? You can call certain aspects of what’s happening sustainable but you need to consider everything. So much goes into the building – the oil needed to transport material in, the energy needed to cool and heat buildings, and the huge amounts of water needed. Dubai’s main source of water is created through desalinisation and it’s very energy intensive. You just need to look at some of the examples of development that should maybe not be taking place in areas with scarce water – golf courses use huge amounts of water for the grass and the ski slope is churning out snow everyday.

What steps are being taken to reduce the amounts of energy used? Lots should be considered but not enough is done. The government is always talking about renewable energy and looking for plans to develop this and has declared several times that they are working on a new agenda.

Which of the huge new projects is having the biggest impact on wildlife? The Palms are a big worry. Digging up the sea’s bed greatly disturbs marine life, suffocating it with a blanket of silt. This debris flows with the current – it’s affecting areas as far as Oman. Coastlines change too as the distribution of sand becomes imbalanced, causing erosion in some areas and a build up in others.

How are the projects affecting the local desert people? Deserts are a very sensitive ecosystem and the crust is a very crucial component. Every species is important and every species has a role in the local people’s life. Increased numbers of inhabitants and visitors will lead to more desert safaris which destroy even more of the crust that protects animals living in the sand from the natural heat.

What, if anything, is being done to protect the land? There are huge areas that are protected; I’m not sure if these areas are scientifically planned to make sure every species is well protected or if the areas chosen are arbitrary.

What is the worse case scenario for ten years’ time? On a global level, the impact of climate change. The sea level will rise, desert storms will increase and precipitation will also be affected. If the world carries on as it is going, by 2080 more than half of the planet will be facing drought. We are encouraging a disastrous future.


Coming attractions

By Jeremy Lawrence, June 2006

Time Out looks at some of the other multi-million dollar projects on the drawing boards of the city’s developers.



Aside from the huge headline-grabbing developments, there are also dozens of other multi-million dollar projects happening across the city, transforming what was once a largely desert-based Emirate into an utterly bizarre and futuristic metropolis. To give some idea of the scale we are talking about, the government alone has now committed almost a trillion dirhams to developments. If you include the total amount of private capital flowing into the region, you are talking about a mind-boggling sum.

Where is the money going? Well, retail and lifestyle developments attract the most press, but Dubai is actually seeking to do far more than attract beach-goers and shopoholics. This is a city built on the movement of goods from east to west, so the massive business and commercial developments in the pipeline are part of the same strategy that started when the Creek was dredged in the ’50s and Jebel Ali Freezone was established in the ’80s. Trade might not be such a sexy topic, but it will continue to underpin the foundations of Dubai’s economic development.

A brief overview of projects in the pipeline shows the city – which not so long ago clung to a short stretch of coastline and the Creek – is now expanding in every direction towards the borders of the Emirate. To the south, Emaar’s flagship Dubai Marina project is in full swing and will eventually house 200 high-rise buildings. Across the road, Nakheel’s Jumeirah Lake Towers will cover 2.4 million square feet and house 79 residential, commercial and retail towers. In Jebel Ali, the inland section of the Waterfront, Arabian Canal, and the gigantic airport complex will pretty much fill up the expanses on the borders of Abu Dhabi.

Back down in the heartlands of the city, the Creek remains at the heart of the planners’ vision for the future of Dubai. Occupying 40 million square feet next to Garhoud Bridge, the Dhs50 billion Culture Village will feature traditional style architecture, Creekside souks, cafés and an amphitheatre, which will attempt to give a cultural and artistic boost to this commercially-minded city. Whether this will work given the fact that it is, ultimately, another commercial development remains to be seen. But it does have some very powerful backing, so don’t bet against it.

A short hop across the water, Festival City will eventually house 70,000 residents who will live, work and play in the mixed-use development. It will feature villas, apartments, shops, restaurants, offices and a marina. Oh, and a golf course. Which’ll make a nice change.

Further down the Creek it will be interesting to see what the pink flamingos of Ras Al Khor make of the US$18 billion Lagoons project. Seven landscaped islands will play host to residential buildings, shopping centres, office buildings and marinas. There will also be a central business district, yet more five star hotels, an opera house, theatre, planetarium, art gallery and a museum. Whether the development will manage to avoid having a negative impact on the ecologically-sensitive wetlands is open to question, but the Lagoons is intended to complement the natural environment of the Creek and will house a Dhs10 million bird sanctuary.

The fact that these projects take up all the remaining space along the banks of the Creek isn’t a problem to planners wishing to build waterside developments. Business Bay will cover 80 million square feet from Ras Al Khor round to the back of Sheikh Zayed Road, and the Creek will be extended all the way round to follow it. A staggering 220 high rise towers will be built by 2012. If you think it sounds like another fanciful and overly ambitious pipe dream, think again. 90 per cent of the plots on sale have sold out, 65 per cent of the digging activity for the Creek extension has been finalised, and phase one of the project will be delivered in the first half of 2007. Together with the ongoing expansion of the neighbouring Dubai International Financial Centre, the skyline of Sheikh Zayed Road will be utterly transformed in the coming years. Preliminary plans are also in place to extend the Creek still further, up to the Metropolitan Hotel, and then – and this is quite brilliant – either under or over (!) Sheikh Zayed Road, and out to the coast through the Safa Park area of Jumeirah. So don’t expect rush hour journey times to reduce any time soon.

Away from the centre of town, Silicone Oasis doesn’t grab many of the headlines – who’s interested in computer chips? – but it will be big business; an expected $US10 billion worth to be more precise. The 7.2 million square feet project located between the Emirates highway and the Hatta road will eventually house fabrication plants, research and development centres and specialised academic institutions. As with the hugely ambitious Jebel Ali airport, the intention is to make Dubai a global industrial hub for the creation and movement of goods and technology.

Finally, Dubailand will continue to add new projects to its roster as overly excitable planners join forces with cash-rich investors. Pick of the crop has to be the recently-announced Bawadi hospitality resort. The Dhs100 billion project will add 31 hotels and an astonishing 29,000 rooms, thereby doubling Dubai’s portfolio. With themed hotels such as Pirates Hotels & Resorts, and Wild Wild West Hotels, together with designs to which the word ‘ostentatious’ doesn’t even start to do justice, it’s little wonder that commentators have come up with a new nickname that seems apt for Dubai 2016. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Duvegas.


The sky’s the limit

By Marcus Webb, June 2006

Think the world’s tallest tower, islands made of sand and turning an entire city into a theme park is impressive? You haven’t seen anything yet. Time Out reveals its five favourite future projects that may – or may not – be heading your way.




Chess City

Ambition
‘Give me your wise, your geeks, your studious and your spotty’. Thus should read the mantra for Chess City, the truest example to date that the Geek shall inherit the earth. Announced last August to the sound of collective jaws hitting floors, Chess City will, according to its creator, Russian billionaire Kirsan Ilumjinov, be a 32-tower, US$2.6 billion project in the shape of, you guessed it, a chess board. Each tower will be fashioned after a piece from the board game with the two ‘king’ towers standing 64 storeys tall. But this is more than a design project – the city will act as the chess players’ equivalent of the land of milk and honey. ‘It is Dubai’s destiny to become the centre of such a magnificent game,’ claimed the rook-obsessed, and possible deluded, Ilumjinov when he launched the project. He went on to claim that ‘Dubai will play host to over 60 million [that’s about the population of the UK, fact fans] amateur and professional chess followers from around the globe annually. They will have a permanent venue where they can congregate and play 24-hour championships throughout the year, while some other 500 million [the populations of USA and Russia combined] lovers of the game will have the chance to follow the excitement via interactive electronic screens.’ And you thought the World Cup was popular.

Plausiblitiy
Unfortunately things seem to have slowed down somewhat since last September: the public relations company originally hired by Ilumjinov are ‘no longer working on the product’ and rumours are that the plans have hit stalemate. Possibly because it was a silly idea and nobody likes chess as much as all that.

Crystal Dome

Ambition
Inspired by Norman Foster’s Reichstag dome in Berlin, The Crystal Dome will allegedly be found just off Trade Centre Roundabout and may or may not be the hub of the new monorail system. Stats wise it’s pretty impressive, with a height of 455 metres and a gross area of about 2.3 million sq m, but the CD’s ambition doesn’t stop at being the world’s biggest building – it will also be one of the oddest. Instead of elevators (which carry people to their floor by going up and down) the Dome will boast olivators (which spiral people upwards around the outside of the building) instead. The building will have two of these perma-twisting spirals around the outside as well as an inner one that will be capable of carrying up to five cars and their occupants to their desired floor – thus eliminating all that pesky walking which has held humans back for so long. This twisted innovation goes as far as temperature control. Rather than bog standard air conditioning, the Dome will use tubes to create an artificial tornado that sucks down fresh air, cooling it as it goes.

Plausibility
Whether the Dome makes it or not is 50/50. Physically the Dome is possible and early artists’ impressions hint that it is a go. That said, no official construction has begun and there are rumours that the building may eventually get built in Abu Dhabi rather than Dubai.

Hydropolis

Ambition
Probably our favourite surreal product of them all, Hydropolis is either pure genius or pure insanity. Take one of the warmest cities in the world and place its visiting tourists not in the sun’s loving embrace but under the sea. Genius. That fact aside, Hydropolis should have the typical Dubai awe-factor. It will include three elements: the land station, where guests will be welcomed, the connecting tunnel, which will transport people by train to the main area of the hotel, and the 220 suites within the hotel proper which will be shaped like a submarine. The entire project will cover an area of 260 hectares, about the size of London’s Hyde Park.

Plausibility
Despite whispers to the contrary – and the fact that there is no sign of construction some fifteen months after the scheduled start date – The Dubai Tourism Development Company maintains that Hydropolis will happen. And when you consider the fact that Sheikh Mohammed himself owns the land, it seems a safe bet.

The Wheel

Ambition
Dubai’s answer to the London Eye will be, you guessed it, the biggest in the world. The wheel will cost some US$150 million, and its height is being kept quiet, but a spokesman for Dubailand – where the Wheel will be based – claimed that ‘visitors will be able to view distances of up to 50 kilometres and will be able to see all the wonders of Dubai’. And a lot of sand, presumably.

Plausibility
While there’s no reason to doubt the validity of the product, local building bible Construction Week has revealed that the company responsible for building the wheel – Las Vegas-based Voyager Entertainment – has never made a profit, has unsuccessfully tried to build similar big wheels in Los Angeles, Shanghai and Dallas and owes several million dollars to creditors.

Ski Trac

Ambition
It seems that Ski Dubai has awakened the UAE’s long-dormant love of snow and there are a number of new ski projects on the table (including wildly unsubstantiated rumours of an outdoor mountain with real snow). More plausible – but only just – is the whisper of a revolving ski slope in Dubai. It would be one of a number of proposed Ski Trac systems planned for around the world: the theory goes that snow enthusiasts would ‘ski’ down the slope while a 175 metre rotating snowfield moved in the opposite direction. Thus hours of endless skiing without actually going anywhere.

Plausibility
It appears to be all systems go. Ski Trac’s website is already boasting that their Matterhorn will be one of Dubai’s most visible and breath-taking attractions and the deal with Dubai’s Legend General Trading is already signed.
www.timeoutdubai.com