Take a Tour of the World's Megaprojects | Dubailand | International Space Station | Jubail II Industrial Complex | Great Man-Made River Project | Saadiyat Island Entertai
Imagine Disney World on steroids. That may help someone get a sense of the concept for this massive entertainment complex, which will cover 278 sq kilometers. The developer is Tatweer, a government-owned company and subsidiary of Dubai Holding. Dubailand will have six components: theme parks, sports venues, eco-tourism, health facilities, science attractions, and hotels and resorts.
The largest component will be Bawadi, a 10-km-long resort strip consisting of 50 themed hotels, with a total of 60,000 rooms. This district will include AsiaAsia, the world’s largest hotel (6,500 rooms), and other hotels modeled after ancient Egyptian palaces, Hollywood, and London’s Houses of Parliament.
Bawadi ultimately is expected to cost $54 billion and contain 217 million sq ft of indoor floor space; however, construction appears to be halted. ENR’s requests for comment from the developer received no response.
Another component, City of Arabia, a retail, residential, and commercial district, is expected to cost $5 billion. Features include a Mall of Arabia, which at 10 million sq ft would be one of the world’s largest malls; Wadi Walk, a large residential complex set around canals; and Elite Towers, a group of 34 commercial and residential buildings. Moreover, 100 life-size animatronic dinosaurs will be on view at The Restless Planet Theme Park.
Some initial construction has taken place at the City of Arabia. Piling work for the mall, along with shoring work and excavation for Wadi Walk, have been completed. But overall, work has slowed or stalled in the past year. The project’s owner, Galadari Group, did not return messages left by ENR.
Construction of another high-profile attraction, the F1-X Formula One Theme Park, which will be part of Motor City, was suspended in February 2009 when it was 50% complete. The F1-X theme park is owned by Union Properties.
Dubailand will contain a number of other large attractions. The $2.2-billion Universal City Dubai will include a 149-acre Universal Theme Park, 4,000 hotel rooms and 100 restaurants; the “Falcon City of Wonders” will include the Pharaoh Theme Park and full-size replicas of the Seven Wonders of the World; and the $1.9-billion Aqua Dunya development calls for two water parks, three hotels and waterfront retail and dining. Other planned attractions include the Dubai Snowdome, the Great Dubai Wheel, the Islamic Culture and Science World and the Emirates Planetarium.
While many components of Dubailand are now on hold, several have been built and are operating. They include the Dubai Autodrome, Dubai Outlet Mall, Global Village, Al Sahra Desert Resort and the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.
Location: Dubai
Estimated Cost: $64 billion
Construction Period: 2003-2025
Developer: Tatweer
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Located in low earth orbit at an altitude of 360 kilometers, the space station has been circling Earth every 92 minutes since the launch of Zarya, its initial power and propulsion module, in November 1998.
Created by a partnership of five space agencies representing 15 nations, the station has a main truss 310 ft long and photovoltaic arrays equivalent in size to two football fields. The station ultimately will include four laboratories and a dozen other habitation, service and cargo modules. The newest component of the station is the observatory module, known as the Cupola, which was launched and attached in February.
The station has been staffed continuously by teams of two or more astronauts since November 2000, with a crew of six on board at present. By now all of the solar arrays and three laboratory modules——Destiny (U.S.), Columbus (Europe), and Kibo (Japan)——have been installed. Experiments conducted so far include studies on the physiological effects of microgravity and solar cell performance in space. Ongoing research projects focus on the long-term effects of space travel on human biology.
NASA has gradually thawed regarding commercialization of space activities. One turning point was the 2005 NASA Authorization Act, which designated the U.S. segment of the ISS as a national laboratory, and directed NASA to develop a plan to “increase the utilization of the ISS by other federal agencies and the private sector.” To date, NASA has reached agreements with five private companies interested in conducting research aboard the space station.
Three components of the station await delivery. The Permanent Multi-Purpose Module will launch aboard Space Shuttle Discovery, scheduled for September. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a particle physics experiment, is scheduled for launch in February, 2011. The final component, Nauka, the Russian lab module, is scheduled for launch in 2012.
The station’s overall cost encompasses research and development, construction and operation of the various modules, and laboratory research work performed there. The U.S. share of the costs through assembly completion in 2011 is estimated to be $31 billion.
Construction fell behind schedule due to an interruption of NASA’s shuttle flights following the February 2003 Columbia crash. The final space shuttle mission is scheduled for 2011.
Other spacecraft that supply the station include the Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) from the European Space Agency, the Progress vehicle from Russia and the H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) from Japan. The ATV and HTV vehicles are scheduled to pay annual visits to the space station starting this year. While Russia’s smaller Soyuz spacecraft can ferry crews, it lacks significant cargo-carrying capacity.
NASA and its partners plan to continue operating the station past its originally planned retirement date of 2016, likely to 2020 or beyond. (ENR 4/22/02 p. 12)
Location: Space
Estimated Cost: $60 billion
Construction Period: 1993-2012
Developers: A joint project of the U.S National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Russian Federal Space Agency, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Canadian Space Agency, and the European Space Agency.
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In the 1970s, Saudi Arabia’s leaders decided to move away from a singular focus on oil and gas extraction to broaden their country’s economy. With the Bechtel Group as their adviser and program manager, they planned and built a massive industrial complex in Jubail, a former fishing village on the Persian Gulf.
The build-out of petrochemical plants, fertilizer plants, steel mills and other industries continued for three decades. The construction workforce peaked at 40,000 in the 1980s. Today, Jubail, a city of 150,000 residents, is Saudi Arabia’s industrial heart, accounting for 7% of the country’s GDP.
In 2002 the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu, the government entity guiding the complex’s development, embarked on a 8,300-hectare expansion, known as Jubail II. The project, under Bechtel’s management, is being carried out in four stages. In total, it will add new primary industries comprising as many as 100 plants, expand the King Fahad Industrial Port and develop residential districts for an additional 150,000 people.
In the industrtial areas alone, Jubail II involves 40 million to 45 million cu m of earthmoving, of which 85% is complete. The residential zone requires 60 million to 65 million cu m of earthmoving. The current construction workforce is 14,500 and is expected to remain at that level for the next few years.
Completed elements of the first phase include a 3.8-kilometer highway linking Jubail II to the existing city, an 80-hectare quay at the port and five new tanker berths. Five hose towers, for loading petrochemical products into tankers, will be finished in early 2011. Construction will commence next year on a 60-km-long rail link between the industrial zone and the port.
Construction is currently under way on a separate rail link connecting the mineral-rich north with Ras Al Zawr minerals city, 85 km north of Jubail; the link should be finished by the end of 2010. The plan is then to build a rail link connecting Ras Al Zawr to Jubail, thus providing access from the north to Jubail’s port facilities.
Plans also are in the works for a 1,065-km-long, east-west rail line linking Jubail with Jeddah via Dammam and Riyadh. The line would form a “land bridge” across the Arabian Peninsula, further elevating Jubail’s strategic importance.
Suez Energy International and Acwa Power Projects are building a $3.4-billion independent desalination and powerplant. The desalination facility will include 27 units employing multiple-effect distillation technology and provide 800,000 cu m per day of desalinated water. The 2,745-MW powerplant will employ combined-cycle gas turbines.
The largest single component planned so far for Jubail II is a new refinery supplied with heavy crude from the Moneefa oil field and capable of producing 400,000 barrels per day. The refinery owner is Satorp, a joint venture consisting of Saudi Aramco and France’s Total, each holding a 37.5% share, with the remaining 25% sold to Saudi individuals. The construction cost is estimated at $9.6 billion, split into 15 contracts. France’s Technip is responsible for the front-end engineering design and managing the engineering, procurement and construction phases. Spain’s Tecnicas Reunidas won a $1-billion contract to build crude and hydro-treating units. Construction began this year, and the refinery is slated to begin production in late 2013. It is expected that once the refinery is complete, new industrial tenants will decide to build plants at Jubail II to take advantage of the available petrochemical feedstock.
Development is under way on three large residential districts—Jalmudah, Mutrafiah and Mardoumah—each of them spanning 10 sq km and accommodating 50,000 residents. Construction of Jalmudah and Mutrafiah has begun. Primary and secondary site development has been finished on 25% of Jalmudah, and construction of housing has started there. Jalmudah is expected to be built out by 2016 and Mutrafiah by 2018. When all three districts are complete, the population of Jubail will have doubled.
Location: Saudi Arabia
Estimated Cost: $80 billion
Construction Period: 2002-2024
Developer: Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu
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As part of a massive water-transfer scheme, water is extracted from sandstone aquifers deep beneath the central Libyan desert and shipped to the country’s coastal regions for urban and agricultural uses. U.K.-based Brown & Root Ltd. served as the consulting engineer and construction manager. Korea’s Dong Ah Consortium was the project’s original general contractor. Price Brothers Co., Dayton, Ohio, designed the pipe factories and supplied pipe-making equipment.
Phase-one pipe-making and construction contracts totaled $3.3 billion. This phase involved 1,900 kilometers of prestressed concrete pipe ranging from 1.6 m to 4 m in diameter and was completed in 1993. During phase one, the workforce peaked at 8,000.
Following the imposition of U.S. sanctions in 1986, Price Brothers’ U.K. subsidiary assumed sole responsibility for the company’s obligation. Phase two was completed in 1996. The phase three well fields and pipelines, known as the Al-Gurdabia/Assdada system, came online in 2007. Corrosion is believed to be the cause of several pipeline blowouts over the years. Phase four includes distribution systems and irrigation networks. One component of phase four is known as the Koufra-Tazirbu system, and it is about 30% complete at present. Another component, the Ghadames-Zoura system, is partially built, operating and expected to be completed by the end of 2010. Currently, about 50,000 hectares of land are being irrigated with water supplied by the project, and 80,000 additional acres are being developed for irrigation.
The project ultimately will irrigate 387,000 acres and supply water to several major cities. The present general contractor is Libyian Al Nahr Co. Two other major contractors currrently involved in the project are SNC-Lavalin of Canada and Tekfen Construction-TFL Joint Venture of Turkey (ENR 5/3/84 p. 13; 9/16/91 p. 28, ENR Global Sourcebook, Dec. 2005 p. 44).
Location: Libya
Estimated Cost: $27 billion
Construction Period: 1985 to 2025 or 2030
Developer: Great Man-Made River Authority
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Triangular and measuring 27 sq km, Saadiyat Island is being transformed into an upscale leisure and cultural destination.
The developer is the Tourism Development & Investment Co., an independent public joint stock company of which Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority is the sole shareholder. TDIC’s strategy is to sell land plots to private investors who will develop them in accordance with a masterplan created by Gensler and Skidmore Owings & Merrill.
The island’s glitziest drawing card will be four iconic museums, linked by a canal, in the cultural district. AECOM is the program manager of this district.
A branch of the Louvre designed by Jean Nouvel will inhabit a 180-m-diameter saucer-like dome sheltering a cluster of detached gallery spaces. The structure will be intricately perforated with Islamic-style filigree, casting dappled shadows below. Construction is expected to cost $900 million. Germany’s Bauer International FZE began driving foundation piles in March. The general contract is expected to be awarded in the fall, and construction is expected to be completed in 2013.
A Frank Gehry-designed jumble of stone-clad boxes, slanted square towers and cones will house a branch of the Guggenheim. With a $400-million construction price tag, the 30,000-sq-m of project is expected to be completed by 2014. The substructure contract will be awarded later this year.
The Performing Arts Center, designed by Zaya Hadid, will contain a music hall, concert hall, opera house, and theater, as well as a performing arts academy. The complex resembles a stack of veined, fused, and overlapping leaves, sculpted in metal and glass.
The Zayed National Museum, devoted to showcasing Abu Dhabi’s cultural heritage, is being designed by Foster + Partners. The design has not yet been made public.
In addition to the cultural district, the island will offer many other leisure opportunities. The Saadiyat Beach District will feature 9 km of beaches, nine luxury hotels and resorts, golf, and several thousand units of luxury residences. The 3.7-sq-km marina district will have a marina, central business district, and a maritime museum. Designed by Tadao Ando, the museum takes the form of a rectangular box whose underside is scalloped into a 14-m-high arch over the harbor.
Other districts will be devoted to family resorts, boardwalks, boutique hotels and low-rise waterfront residences by tidal lagoons. The first villas are slated to be finished at the end of 2010. Once fully developed, Saadiyat Island’s population is expected to reach 150,000.
In addition to being a vacation destination, Saadiyat Island will house a branch of New York University with more than 2,500 students. Site mobilization work on the campus is scheduled to commence this fall and be completed by early 2014. Mubadala is the developer; Al Futtaim Carillion is the design-builder. Rafael Vi�oly Architects designed the masterplan.
Several components of the island’s infrastructure are completed or under construction. The 10-lane Sheikh Khalifa Bridge connecting the island to the city of Abu Dhabi opened in October 2009. Construction of the sewage treatment plant started in November 2009 and is expected to be completed by September 2011. Work is under way on three of the four 132-kv electrical substations, with commissioning scheduled for August.
Housing is being built for the construction workforce, which is expected to peak at 40,000. Saadiyat Construction Village will ultimately comprise four clusters of dormitories, with each cluster capable of accommodating 5,000 workers. Two of the clusters have been completed so far, with 8,000 workers living there at present. Construction of the third and fourth clusters are approaching completion.
Location: Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Estimated Cost: $27 billion
Construction Period: 2007-2018
Developer: Tourism Development & Investment Co. (TDIC)
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Sellafield is the U.K.’s primary nuclear-fuel reprocessing facility. It covers a 700-acre site, employs 11,000 workers and is located 70 miles north of Liverpool on the Irish Sea. Sellafield contains the Calder Hall nuclear power station (containing four Magnox reactors), the world’s first commercial nuclear powerplant, which went online in 1956 and closed in 2003. Calder Hall also produced plutonium for weapons purposes until 1995. Its four cooling towers were demolished by controlled explosions in September 2007. (ENR 10/8/07 p. 15)
Sellafield also contains the Windscale Piles, two air-cooled, graphite-moderated reactors that constituted Britain’s first weapons-grade plutonium production facility, which went online in 1950. The piles were shut down following a fire in 1957, which destroyed Pile One. Decommissioning of the piles began in the 1990s.
The site also contains the Windscale Advanced Gas-Cooled Reactor, which was shut down in 1981 and is now being decommissioned. A fourth major facility is the Magnox reprocessing plant, which, since 1964, has reprocessed spent fuel using the “plutonium uranium extraction” (Purex) method.
A fifth facility is the Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant (Thorp), which, since 1994, has been reprocessing irradiated-oxide nuclear fuel from both U.K. and foreign reactors. It chemically separates the uranium, plutonium and waste products. In 2005, it was discovered that 83,000 liters of radioactive waste had leaked from a cracked pipe at Thorp.
A sixth facility, the Windscale Vitrification Plant, has been sealing high-level radioactive waste in glass since 1991. The high-level liquid waste is evaporated and converted to a powder in a melter. The powder (calcine) is mixed with molten glass and poured into stainless-steel containers and stored on-site.
A seventh major facility, the Sellafield MOX Plant, has been separating plutonium from spent fuel and recycling it into mixed oxide fuel since 1997.
Nuclear Management Partners Ltd., a consortium made up of Amec, URS and Areva, was awarded a contract in 2008 to operate, clean up and decommission Sellafield. NMP owns and manages Sellafield Ltd., which comprises the Sellafield complex as well as the Capenhurst plant in Cheshire. Under the current five-year contract, Sellafield Ltd.’s annual site-funding limit, set by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA), is $2.27 billion, with a further 12-year option. The workforce decommissioning facilities at Sellafield currently numbers 2,230.
Over the course of the next century, the NDA hopes to decommission the plants and facilities at Sellafield, with the higher-hazard legacy ponds and silos as the top priority. By 2120, the NDA expects the site will have achieved brownfield status, with all the waste disposed, and reusable products stored on-site, pending any decisions on further use. (ENR 4/24/06 p. 17; 7/21/08 p. 14)
Location: Britain
Estimated Cost: $30 billion
Construction Period: 2006-2120
Owner: Nuclear Decommissioning Authority
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A new urban center is rapidly taking shape in Incheon, Korea, a port city 30 miles west of Seoul. Work is under way on 100 buildings across 1,500 acres reclaimed from the sea. The First World apartment complex is currently home to Songdo’s first 12,000 residents.
The development’s population is expected to reach 65,000 upon completion in 2014. The Convensia Convention Center, the Convention Center Hotel, an international school and the 100-acre Central Park have been completed. The construction workforce currently numbers 20,000 and is expected to peak in late 2010 at 25,000.
The developer is New Songdo International City Development LLC, a 70%-30% partnership of New York-headquartered Gale International as the majority partner, and POSCO Engineering and Construction Co., a unit of Korea’s largest steel producer. The master plan was developed by New York based Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates. Incheon Bridge, with both cable-stayed and cantilever sections and viaducts totaling 7.6 miles, opened last year, connecting Songdo to Incheon International Airport.
The centerpiece is the 65-story Northeast Asia Trade Tower. It recently topped out, with completion expected early next year. It will be South Korea’s tallest building at 305 m.
The master plan calls for two fifths of the site to be devoted to green space—parks, wetlands and canals—far greater than most other urban centers in Asia. It is pedestrian-friendly, with walking/biking corridors and public gathering spaces.
Phase Two construction is under way now. When complete, there will be nine tall residential buildings, designed by such firms as HOK and Kohn Pedersen Fox. Seven of them are currently under construction. Five major mixed-use office/hotel/retail buildings are expected to be built during coming years. When finished, Songdo will contain 30 million sq ft of residential space, 45 million sq ft of office space, 10 million sq ft of retail and five million sq ft of hotel space.
Songdo is already connected with downtown Incheon and Seoul via subway, with three stops serving Songdo. This connectivity will be ever more vital, because 300,000 office workers and students are expected to commute into Songdo daily upon completion. There is also extensive water taxi service. (ENR Global Sourcebook, Dec. 2005, p. 45, enr.com 8/19/09)
Location: Incheon, South Korea
Estimated Cost: $35 billion
Construction Period: 2004-2016
Developer: New Songdo International City Development LLC
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To relieve the problem of population density, the Egyptian government has embarked on a vast effort to reclaim 2,300 sq miles of desert in southern Egypt.
The first major component was the world’s largest pumping station, with a capacity of 25 million cubic meters per day, completed in 2003. Located on the west bank of Lake Nasser, it pumps Nile River water into the Sheikh Zayed Canal, which is 30 meter wide at the bottom, 54 m wide at the surface, 8 m deep and 72 kilometer long. The New Naga Hammadi Dam on the Nile, completed in 2008, channels additional water.
Three major areas will be reclaimed: Toshka, East Oweinat and the Western Desert Oasis. All four branch canals carrying water from the Sheikh Zayed Canal to Toshka are completed.
By 2008, only 8,000 acres out of the 560,000 acres supplied with water in the Toshka Valley had been planted. Government-subsidized farmers were growing wheat, corn and vegetables on 7,000 of those acres. The government’s failure to provide roads, warehouses and housing to support the development at Toshka have hindered the project.
Another significant barrier to development of Toshka has been the reluctance of workers to move there permanently. Engineers, technicians, drivers and equipment operators will only work there seasonally, returning to live with their families in their towns and cities in the Nile Valley and the Delta.
The only private investor in Toshka to date is Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal of Saudi Arabia. He bought 100,000 acres of land in the Toshka Valley in 1998, through his company, Kingdom Agricultural Development Co. As of 2008, about four years after water was supplied to Toshka, only 1,000 acres of Kingdom’s land was being farmed, mostly to raise produce for export to Europe. In March 2010, Prince Alwaleed announced that he planned to sell 50% of his agricultural firm, probably to Asian investors.
In January 2010, the government announced a change in direction on the project. Previously, land had been offered to buyers on an ownership basis, but some investors had held the land as speculators, without investing funds to begin cultivating their plots. Agriculture Minister Amin Abaza said that 300,000 acres in Toshka would be offered to investors on a usufruct basis. Under this new system, investors will have three years to complete their development activities or risk losing title.
East Oweinat, an area south of Toshka, is developing more rapidly. There, 540 wells ranging from 25 to 100 m deep are supplying water. A number of private companies own 10,000- acre blocks of land, growing wheat for sale to the government’s flour mills (bread is Egypt’s staple food), as well as chickpeas, peanuts and vegetables, which are sold locally.
The Western Desert Oasis also are operating successfully, supporting several hundred thousand people engaged in farming.
Officials predict that six million people eventually will relocate from the overcrowded Nile Valley to the reclaimed land. (ENR 11/30/98 p. 61; 5/7/01 p. 20)
Location: Egypt
Estimated Cost: $90 billion
Construction Period: 1997-2017
Developer: Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation
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North China is thirsty. It is home to half the country’s people but only 19% of its freshwater resources, and it is prone to drought. To alleviate water shortages there, the government is undertaking the largest water diversion project in history. Water from four of China’s largest rivers—the Yangtze, Yellow, Huai and Hai, all of which flow from west to east—will be carried north by three canals, each over 600 miles long.
The canals are referred to as the East Route, Middle Route and West Route. The East Route, which is largely done, diverts water from the lower reaches of the Yangtze, raising it vertically with 30 pumping stations and carrying it to Shandong Province and the city of Tianjin. Water quality on the East Route is of particular concern, and $3 billion is earmarked for 260 municipal wastewater treatment projects to prevent contamination.
The Middle Route will divert water from the Danjiangkou Reservoir and possibly the Three Gorges Reservoir to Beijing. In a project completed earlier this year, the Danjiangkou Dam was raised from its previous height of 157 meters to 170 m, which increased the reservoir’s capacity by 40%. The reservoir is now the largest man-made lake in Asia.
Making the reservoir water clean has been the focus of a sustained campaign by government officials. Over the past five years, they closed down 47 heavily polluting companies and carried out pollution-control measures at 30 more, spending $50 million in the process. To reduce agricultural runoff, municipalities offered money and technology to encourage farmers to develop pollution-free produce. In 2001, Danjiangkou City embarked on a program to re-forest more land within the watershed. The forest coverage rate around the reservoir has increased from 34% to 56%.
The project will have major impacts, both social and environmental. It will require the relocation of 300,000 people, many of whom were moved to allow the expansion of the Danjiangkou Reservoir. As for environmental impacts, some Chinese scientists have raised concerns. According to Du Yun, a geologist with the Institute of Geodesy and Geophysics at the China Academy of Sciences, the water from the Danjiangkou Reservoir siphoned off by the project will raise the risk of floods, increase sediment and worsen water quality, thereby hurting irrigation for local residents and limiting supplies for industrial and municipal use.
A key part of the Middle Route will be two 8.5-m-diameter tunnels, each 3.4 kilometers long, to carry water beneath the Yellow River at Mangshan, 40 miles from Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan Province. Work on the tunnels began in 2005. The first tunnel was completed last month, and the second is expected to be drilled through by September.
The Middle Route’s completion date was postponed from 2010 to 2014. Beijing’s 17.5 million residents need the water urgently. Their region is experiencing its ninth consecutive year of drought, and the city’s Miyun Reservoir is currently 2% lower than in the same period last year.
Costs for the first phases of the East Route and the Middle Route are projected to be $37.4 billion. This first phase will supply 13.4 billion cu m of water annually by 2014.
The West Route still is being planned. It will include two 200-m-plus-high dams, carrying water across the Qinghai-Tibet plateau— at more than 10,000 ft elevation—to feed China’s arid northwest. Engineering studies are under way, but no launch date for construction has been announced yet. The entire system is expected to supply 44 billion cu m of water annually when completed.
Location: China
Estimated Cost: $62 billion
Construction Period: 2002-2050
Developer: South-to-North Water Diversion Project Office of the State Council
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A leisure and entertainment destination, Yas Island has gotten off to a fast start. This 25-sq-kilometer island, 20 km from the Abu Dhabi city center and 20 km east of Saadiyat Island, is on the way to becoming a dynamic and lush recreational setting. It is being developed by Aldar Properties, a real estate development, management and investment company owned by major Abu Dhabi institutions and individual investors. Benoys is the master-plan consultant. Halcrow is the infrastructure consultant, and KBR is the program manager.
The first major component is the Yas Marina Circuit project, owned by Abu Dhabi Motorsports Management. This Formula One racetrack features a 5.8-km race course that hugs the edge of a marina and runs under the curvy Yas Hotel, where guests can watch the race from the lounge. Other elements of the circuit include grandstands and a drag strip. The project was fast-tracked in 30 months, in time to host a Grand Prix event in November 2009. Halcrow was the main consultant, and Cedarco WCT was the general contractor.
The 500-room Yas Hotel is shaped somewhat like a whale; it was designed by Asymptote Architecture.
Another centerpiece of the island will be the Ferrari World Abu Dhabi, which will be the world’s largest indoor theme park when it is completed. Construction began in 2007. Over a dozen attractions will be sheltered beneath a triangular roof, including the world’s fastest roller coaster traveling up to 240 km per hour. A history-themed ride will screen famous races from the past several decades. The Flying Over Italy Theater will show aerial scenes of Italian cities and rural scenes on a large screen. Bell’Italia will be a 6,300-sq-meter layout containing 1/20th scale replicas of Italian cityscapes and landmarks, including the Colosseum, Venice and the Amalfi Coast, which visitors can walk through.
Adjacent to Ferrari World, the Yas Mall will contain gallerias, piazzas and extensive fountains, spread out below a 88,000-sq-m roof. It will be anchored by a 16,000-sq-m Geant hypermarket, scheduled to open in 2012, and a 32,000-sq-m Ikea, expected to open in 2011.
A water park will contain over 40 rides and attractions spread over 16.4 hectares. Construction started this month, and it is expected to open in 2012. A Warner Bros. Movie World theme park is still in the planning stage.
The island will contain six marinas, with a total of 1,400 berths. Several of the marinas are currently under construction.
When complete, the island will have 110,000 residents and 300,000 daily visitors.
Location: Abu Dhabi
Estimated Cost: $39 billion
Construction Period: 2007-2012
Developers: Aldar Properties
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