Friday, November 21, 2008

Nakheel extends closing date for tower proposals

The closing date for preliminary proposals for the 1 kilometre-plus tower planned by the UAE's Nakheel has been extended to 4 December. The tower is part of the AED140bn ($38bn) Nakheel Harbour & Tower development in Dubai.

The companies invited to bid for the tower are the local/Australian Al-Habtoor Leighton, the local/UK Al-Naboodah Laing O'Rourke, South Africa's Murray & Roberts Construction (Middle East), South Korea's Samsung Corporation, Japan's Taisei Corporation and France's Vinci Construction Grand Projets.

The AED30bn tower will be developed over 10 years. The client plans to shortlist two groups by the end of 2008 and select one group to provide pre-construction services by early 2009. The pre-construction period is expected to last for at least a year.

Enabling works on the development are being carried out by France's Soletanche Bachy. The package is scheduled for completion in October 2010, and work on the tower's superstructure is expected to follow shortly after.

In June, sources close to the project said the tower had been designed to be 1.4 km high. However, Nakheel has only confirmed that it will be more than 1km high. Once finished, it will be taller than the Burj Dubai, which is expected to be about 820 metres high when completed in 2009.

The consultancy team for the tower includes UK-based WSP, US-based Leslie E Robertson Associates and Australia's Woods Bagot.

The development will be built alongside the proposed Arabian Canal and next to Ibn Battuta Mall and Jumeirah islands. It will cover an area of 2.7km and will be home to more than 55,000 people (MEED 31:10:08).

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