Norman Foster, the designer of Masdar City’s master plan, yesterday visited the project eight years after delivering the blueprint for the sustainable city.
Masdar City continues to apply Foster + Partners’ original design principles of low-rise, high-density residences.
“It is fantastic to see Masdar City embarking on its next phase of growth,” said Lord Foster.
As part of that growth, a new wave of building activity is set to resume at Masdar City over the next few months. Contractors will soon be appointed to build more residential apartments, two student accommodation blocks and a 10,000 square metre office building.
Chris Chi Lon Wan, Masdar City’s design manager, said that the first wave of residential development containing 500 units is being built by the contractor Brookfield Multiplex and will be completed within the next 18 to 24 months. This will bring up to 3,000 residents to the site.
“Masdar City is extremely busy at the moment,” he said.
He added that tenders to build a second phase of residential accommodation and two blocks of student accommodation were due to be issued in the first quarter of next year.
These projects could be tendered as separate packages or as a combined programme. The student accommodation element is likely to contain up to 200 rooms.
Detailed designs are also being concluded for a 10,000 sq metres, L-shaped office building that could be used either by a single occupier or for a number of tenants, depending on demand.
“All of the buildings we have to date are fully tenanted and occupied, so there’s no vacancies and we are already feeling the pinch in terms of the need to build aggressively to accommodate demand,” said the Masdar City director Anthony Mallows.
He added that the new residential accommodation was likely to comprise about 100,000 sq metres of buildings, compared to the 57,000 sq metres under way.
Although Masdar City went through a quiet period after the global financial collapse, Mr Mallows said a reworked strategy three years ago, under which it will work with more third-party developers and joint-venture partners, is now paying dividends.
The new residential, student and office accommodation is all being self-developed, but Mr Mallows said there were “a whole bunch” of agreements with third-party developers in motion, including deals for more residences, serviced apartments and hotels. Already, Emirates College of Technology has agreed to relocate its main campus, with 3,000 students, to Masdar City, and a new 6,500 sq metres Abu Dhabi Science Centre for children will be housed nearby. Meanwhile, the UAE Pavilion at Milan Expo will be re-sited to become a Masdar Visitors’ Centre once the event closes this weekend.
“We’re back building neighbourhoods now,” said Mr Mallows.
All of these facilities will be based in the existing neighbourhood that also contains the Masdar Institute, Masdar’s own HQ, the Irena HQ and the Siemens building, but Mr Mallows said that a second neighbourhood with the new Gems school at its heart would start to take shape next year.
“We have eight neighbourhoods. We plan to roll out the city one by one and learn as we grow,” he said.
The master plan for Masdar City is for a 6 sq kilometre site that will eventually hold about 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses. About 60 per cent of the buildings will be residential accommodation, 17 per cent commercial offices, 12 per cent community facilities and 11 per cent light industrial space.
“The question we often get asked is, ‘when will you be finished?’” Mr Wan said. “If you Google it, you get various dates from 2025, 2030 and beyond. But the reality is we are moving as fast as the market allows us to be. When is a city ever finished?”
mfahy@thenational.ae
Follow The National's Business section on Twitter
