Residential City infrastructure work 'to start soon'

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The contract for infrastructure development within the Dubai World Central's (DWC)Dubai World Central's (DWC) Residential City will be awarded soon, revealed a senior official.

Rashed Bugaraa, COO of DWC, said none of the planned developments within DWC have been put on hold and work will continue as scheduled.

Speaking to Emirates Business, he said: "The construction work is in progress and the project is shaping very well. Most of the work on the terminal building is already complete and the remaining will be finished by year end. There is no change in plans. Nothing has been put on hold. The milestones are as per schedule."

At the core of this airport city will be Al Maktoum InternationalAl Maktoum International. The project also incorporates other developments such as Dubai Logistics City, Aviation City, Residential City, Commercial City and Golf City.

"The infrastructure phase of Residential City is being tendered and soon it will be awarded," said Bugaraa. Residential City is expected to house about 250,000 people and will include a variety of commercial components and community facilities such as schools, hospitals, healthcare centres, religious facilities, post offices, police stations, civil defence and public libraries. It will be served by a district cooling system through eight central utility complexes around the city.

It will also have a comprehensive and integrated road network and will be linked to the peripheral road that runs around Al Maktoum InternationalAl Maktoum International. A light rail system will run along the city.

The first phase of Al Maktoum International AirportAl Maktoum International Airport is expected to be complete by mid-2010. The passenger terminal, a 75,000 square metres single-level building, is designed to cater to five to seven million passengers per year and is set to begin operations by June next year.

Meanwhile, the number of runways has been reduced to five. "Instead of six runways as originally designed, it will now have five," said Bugaraa.

Work is complete on the first 4.5km A380-enabled Category-III runway. The $8.1 billion (Dh29.75bn) Al Maktoum International AirportAl Maktoum International Airport, when completed, will be the world's biggest passenger and cargo hub.

Construction of the air traffic control (ATC) tower was completed earlier, making it the region's tallest free-standing ATC tower at 91 metres. The facility also includes a separate technical block of 6,000 sqm, which will house offices, operations, technical rooms, flight simulators and a meteor observation cabin.

Construction work on the first phase of Logistics City is already complete and some clients have started their operations from there, said Bugaraa.

"The first phase of Logistics City is complete. Be it the infrastructure, power, district cooling and drainage system, all work is complete. We are just waiting for our customers and investors to start building their facilities," he said.

Construction of the first of the 16 cargo terminals was also completed earlier this year. It will have a capacity to handle 600,000 tonnes of cargo annually. The ultimate goal is to create facilities to handle an annual cargo capacity of 12 million tonnes.

"We have several developers whose designs are being currently reviewed by our team and finalsed. Once approved, work on these developments should start soon," said Bugaraa.

Commenting on the impact of the economic slowdown, he said: "The project has been planned with a long-term perspective. It has been planned to take care of the needs of the sector until 2050."

With regard to falling prices and easy availability of building materials, Bugaraa said: "We took measures to take advantage of the falling construction cost. Several contracts were renegotiated in an effort to update the value of construction given the current scenario."

According to Bugaraa the outlook for the future is very positive.

"Take the example of cargo. It has been increasing over the past few months and is expected to increase during the coming months and years," he said.

By Joseph George

© Emirates Business 24/7 2009