The joint venture of the UK’s Carillion and the local Qatar Building Company has won the QR2.37bn ($651m) contract to build phase 1b of Msheireb Downtown Doha project.

The joint venture completed all the substructure and superstructure works of Phase 1b, which comprises 15 buildings, including a Mandarin Oriental Hotel comprising 158 rooms and 91 service apartments, two office buildings with 52 retail units and 12 residential buildings providing a total of 180 apartments.

The other bidders included:

• Arabtec Construction (UAE)/Arabtec Construction (Qatar)
• GS Engineering & Construction (South Korea)/Al-Huda Engineering (local)
• Multiplex (Australia)/Medgulf Construction (local)
• Six Construct (Belgium)/Midmac Contracting Company (local)
• Samsung C&T (South Korea)/Redco Construction (local)
• Taisei Corporation (Japan)/Redco International (local)

In April 2010, Dohaland awarded a QR1.6bn contract to the joint venture of South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering & Construction Company and the local HBK Contracting Company to build phase 1a of the development (MEED 26:4:10).

Cat International Qatar, part of Lebanon’s Contracting & Trading (Cat) was awarded an estimated QR530m infrastructure deal for phase 1a and Germany’s Bauer is working on the enabling works package for phase 1a.

The 750,000-square-metre Musheireb development is one of the largest real-estate schemes in the capital. It will be built behind the Emiri Diwan administrative centre on Doha corniche. The scheme will also include an interchange for Doha’s proposed metro system.

The client for the project is Musheireb Properties. It was previously known as Dohaland and is part of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science & Community Development.