Deyaar Development has tendered the main contract for phase one of its Dh3 billion Midtown project in International Media Production Zone, with a main contractor likely to be in place by the end of the year.
The Dubai developer said that phase one will contain two of the project’s six districts. Districts two and three will comprise 13 of the 25 residential towers being planned at Midtown,
“We are tendering at the moment. We’re doing the enabling contract – the excavation and piling,” said Iyad Charchar, the vice president of projects and engineering.
It is spending about Dh31 million on enabling works, which are currently “halfway” through, according to Mr Charchar.
“We estimate the value of construction to be somewhere between Dh700 million and Dh750m. Obviously this is just the construction cost and doesn’t include services connection or land costs.”
He argued that the work on phase one of Midtown will take just over two years to build, with completion scheduled for mid-2019 – “possibly earlier, by Q1 2019”.
The company had initially said at the launch of phase one of the project in August last year that that it had expected to appoint a contractor by the end of 2016, with completion for September 2018.
Mr Charchar added that it is currently assessing tender bids from contractors to build its new 408-unit hotel and tower block in Al Barsha, which was announced last week.
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A contractor for that project is expected to be appointed next month, but work will be completed under a fast-track contract that will finish by December 2017.
“This is going to be a model project management and construction project for us,” said Mr Charchar. “The problem with most projects is because of the commercial side to it. You have to launch and start construction while you are selling. You end up making a lot of slow decisions. But in Al Barsha it’s not freehold. We have to design it, build it and operate it to start getting revenue. So everything was done in a much faster fashion.”
The new hotel in Al Barsha will be one of three Deyaar projects with a hospitality element set to be operated by Millennium & Copthorne Hotels due for completion by the end of next year.
The Montrose project – a three-tower scheme in Dubai Science Park containing one hotel tower – and the twin-towered Atria project at Business Bay are also set to complete next year.
mfahy@thenational.ae
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