Arabian Canal project plots available soon

By Angela Giuffrida  www.arabianbusiness.com

Limitless will start selling plots of land surrounding its Arabian Canal project to third-party developers in the next three months.

Arabian Canal

Some of the land will be retained by Limitless for waterfront development.

“We’ve produced a basic design framework which will create consistency. We’re not going to have designs that conflict with those of our subdevelopers,” said Ian Raine, development manager for the project at Limitless.

Raine added that contracts for the major works of the Arabian Canal – estimated to cost US $11 billion (AED 40.3 billion) – are expected to be awarded by the middle of this year.

The local Bund Construction and South Korea’s Samsung were awarded contracts for preliminary work in January.

Bund Construction is doing enabling and excavation work in the inland area of the project close to Jebel Ali, while Samsung is carrying out a pilot excavation study – estimated to be worth US $6.8 million – of the inland area.

The pilot study involves excavating to a depth of 40m on three sites, including one in Jumeirah Golf Estates and one in the island canal area.

Due to the scale of the project, the contract for the main construction will be divided into around 10 separate packages, added Raine.

“It is a very large project, there is no doubt about it. And the way we are dealing with it is to break it down into smaller, more manageable portions,” he said.

The canal will be 75km when completed. It will flow inland from Dubai Waterfront, passing to the east of Dubai World Central, before heading back towards Palm Jumeirah.

The project hopes to attract a population of two million.