The opening of Dubai’s long-delayed Palazzo Versace hotel and resort came a step closer yesterday, when Enshaa awarded a contract to provide district cooling to the Dh2.3 billion project.
Enshaa said that it had awarded Emirates District Cooling (Emicool) the contract to provide chilled water to the Palazzo Versace Dubai Hotel and Condominiums and the D1 Tower, which it is building on Dubai Creek opposite Festival City.
Under the terms of the contract, Emicool will design, build, finance and operate the 7,300 refrigerated tonne plant that will use treated sewage water for its cooling towers and which will start supplying chilled water for air conditioning by September 2014, Enshaa said yesterday.
The ambitious hotel scheme was first launched in 2006 by Emirates Sunland Group, a joint venture between the Enshaa subsidiary Emirates International Holding and the Australian developer Sunland Group.
The grand Versace-designed project of 169 apartments, a 215-room hotel and an 80-storey block of flats, was reported to have included plans for the world’s first refrigerated beach. It was originally due to be completed in 2009.
In 2011 Enshaa took full control of the development as part of an asset swap with Sunland for its stake in Palazzo Versace Gold Coast as work on the Dubai project stalled.
Enshaa blamed the delays on a lack of power, water and other utilities on the site.
The Enshaa chief executive Raza Jafar welcomed the cooling deal as “step forward”.
lbarnard@thenational.ae
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Visit Abu Dhabi culinary team's top Emirati restaurants in Abu Dhabi
Yadoo’s House Restaurant+& Cafe
For the karak and Yoodo's house platter with includes eggs, balaleet, khamir and chebab bread.
Golden Dallah
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Al Mrzab Restaurant
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US federal gun reform since Sandy Hook
- April 17, 2013: A bipartisan-drafted bill to expand background checks and ban assault weapons fails in the Senate.
- July 2015: Bill to require background checks for all gun sales is introduced in House of Representatives. It is not brought to a vote.
- June 12, 2016: Orlando shooting. Barack Obama calls on Congress to renew law prohibiting sale of assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines.
- October 1, 2017: Las Vegas shooting. US lawmakers call for banning bump-fire stocks, and some renew call for assault weapons ban.
- February 14, 2018: Seventeen pupils are killed and 17 are wounded during a mass shooting in Parkland, Florida.
- December 18, 2018: Donald Trump announces a ban on bump-fire stocks.
- August 2019: US House passes law expanding background checks. It is not brought to a vote in the Senate.
- April 11, 2022: Joe Biden announces measures to crack down on hard-to-trace 'ghost guns'.
- May 24, 2022: Nineteen children and two teachers are killed at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
- June 25, 2022: Joe Biden signs into law the first federal gun-control bill in decades.
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