With over 20 projects in the pipeline, including branded theme parks, the world’s largest shopping mall, the world’s longest hotel strip and a handful of educational, sport and cultural ‘cities’, Dubailand makes anything that came before it seem positively cute. With resorts, spas, hotels and residential sprawls to boot, Dubailand was scheduled to go live by 2012. But with the advent of the global recession some say even Dubai cannot sustain such an ambition.
The draw
Since Dubai put up the ‘For Sale’ sign on its closed property market in 2002, real estate has exploded like a split atom with no end to fortunes changing hands for erstwhile desert tracts, manmade islands or architecturally stupefying condominiums. Today Dubai sits on the world’s ‘must visit’ list, not least because of its chic DJ nights, extravagant sports fixtures, citywide shopping festivals and arts and culture events that instigate frequent comparisons of the city with Paris, New York and London. You might have thought the Dubai of today was enough to make you grab your factor-50 and bolt for the airport.
Just as you thought Dubai was big enough, tall enough and glamorous enough to make you kiss your credit cards goodbye, Dubai Holding announced that it would build a tourism venue to dwarf the Disneys of this world and make you want to buy a house amongst animatronic dinosaurs and golf courses. Behold, Dubailand - a plan to have no less than a Universal Studios and Dreamworks, Legoland, Six Flags, an F1-Theme Park, the world’s largest shopping mall, a ski dome, sports academies, a planetarium, a culture and science world and enough adrenaline-inducing attractions to make you want to sell up and move to the booming emirate with haste. The jewel in the crown is The City of Arabia – a grand entrance city and theme park with vast tracts of desert being transformed into habitable and luxurious constructions, most of which you can ride. Due to its sheer size and stature at almost 70,000 acres, Dubailand is being called the Disneyland of the Desert.
How ambitious could it be?
With an estimated 64 billion USD being poured into its 20 odd developments, Dubailand eats Monopoly boards for breakfast. Tatweer, the master developer of the project, plans to have the world’s largest Ferris wheel, the world’s largest Shopping Mall, Tiger Woods’ first golf course, a Manchester United Academy for football, an F1-certified autodrome, an F1-theme park, a city where all the wonders of the world are recreated bigger and better and an indoor skiing arena in the world’s largest freestanding dome. And of course just when you thought you were at the end of Donald Trump’s Christmas wishlist, there’s more. Steven Spielberg is consulting on the project to build Universal Studios in Dubailand, a Marvel Theme Park is planned with rides based on the world’s favourite comic book heroes, Six Flags will be here too, which will be the American icon’s first address outside the US, Legoland, Al Sahara Kingdom, a Polo and Equestrian Club, an education city, a Beauty City and water parks round it all off.
It doesn’t stop there
The Dubai Tourism Authority has a well-publicised goal of attracting 15 million tourists by 2015. So where will they stay? Well, the Bawadi Strip of course. Scheduled to be the world’s longest stretch of hotels at 10km, Bawadi has a total of 54 billion USD to make 51 themed hotels (60,000 rooms) in a bid for it to become the Las Vegas of Arabia - without the gambling. The Bawadi Strip will include the world’s largest hotel (Asia Asia), boasting 6,500 rooms. All of these projects will be surrounded by office and residential complexes, which are available to buy or lease.
The residential projects promise the kind of homes that have become synonymous with Dubai’s real estate market. Sumptuously ensconced in lush green foliage, with sprawling terraces and vistas of a forever-changing skyline, Dubailand’s real estate will feature everything from schools and hospitals to boutiques, cafes and shopping malls. Needless to say golf courses will make a big impact with a Golf City planned. Other projects include the Tiger Woods Dubai, the world’s first 7,800 yard, 18-hole championship course designed by the man himself. Butch Harmon, trainer to the pros, has an academy at Dubailand, which is already up and running. And in terms of sport, what doesn’t Dubailand’s Sports City have? There are stadia, training academies and arenas designed to draw world championship organisers to the city. Manchester United’s training academy is here as is David Lloyd’s. The A1 Autodrome forms a part of this venue, as does an International Cricket Council stadium.
At a size of 277.5 sq km, Dubailand will be larger than the city of Orlando and twice the size of Disney World Florida. How’s that for ambitious?
What’s ready?
Some of the projects in Dubailand have already gone live. One of Bespoke’s sources revealed that phase one will be complete by 2010 or 2011, and that six projects are already up and running. It is expected that by the end of this year, the first golf course will be open at Golf City. A highly publicised series of one-day international cricket matches between Pakistan and Australia launched one state-of-the-art stadium and the Dubai Autodrome has been running for three years to date. Victory Heights has residents at the location already and some of the homes and villas in Falcon City of Wonders are taking shape. Global Village just completed its ten-year run and Outlet Mall, a bargain hunter’s paradise, is looking to expand in size due to its surprising profitability. While all of this constitutes only a fraction of what’s planned for Dubailand, it’s a healthy start given the global economic downturn. Groundbreaking has taken place at other venues real estate sites show photos of countless projects getting underway. As it stands however, the wonder that is Dubailand seems a far way off yet.
How has the downturn affected it all?
At the end of the first quarter in 2009, Dubai’s frenetic construction boom quietened significantly, with 236 billion USD worth of projects being officially cancelled or put on hold. In February, the city was awarded 20 billion USD by the UAE federal government as part of a financial recovery package and Standard and Poor downgraded their ratings of the Emirates’ key private corporations, suggesting their debt payments would triple by 2011. Dubai’s packed hotels are reporting lower profit margins and rumours across the city are rife about project cancellations. The question remains, how does this affect the world’s most ambitious tourism project?
Good and Bad News
Union Properties PJSC, the third largest real estate developer in Dubai, recently declared that its F1-X Theme Park at Dubailand was in danger of being cancelled and would be delayed by at least a year. The Living Legends developer Tanmiyat is restructuring their payment and construction schedule in the face of the recession and worryingly, Six Flags, almost a year to the date that it announced its involvement in Dubailand, reported that it might file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, despite the profitability of its day-to-day operations. To combat such adversities, Dubai Holding has restructured, appointing new chief executives across its operational and executive arms and has consolidated or merged several branches within its company structure. Still, there is good news.
For starters, the senior vice president of Dubailand, Mohammed Al Habbai reportedly told Arabian Business magazine in February that projects not already under construction were being reviewed. However, those that had started would ‘go on’. Al Habbai added that phase one was on course and that Dubai Holding was proceeding with an ‘air of caution’. In early April the Galadari Group, owners of City of Arabia, told media that work was going ‘full steam ahead’ and that its projects were on course to be completed by 2010. The director for the Tiger Woods golf course said that he had ‘no plans to put a hold’ on his projects, and a stream of private developers at Dubailand including Tanmiyat, Damac Properties, the Galadari Group and Dubai Golf City shot off press statements to allay fears about the cancellation or closure of their projects. Tatweer has gone so far as to announce new developments, saying that it would bring to life three new venues based on the famed television series Sesame Street, as part of its Universal Studios venture.
Dubailand promises to be the jewel in the crown of an emirate that has forged a reputation for making a reality out of mirages. With the recession still going strong, one wonders whether the hype and expectation of Dubailand’s gigantic boast will bear fruit. But if you bear in mind that this is Dubai we’re talking about, you wouldn’t bet against it working out.
