Plans for an expansion to the Jumeirah Beach Hotel have been approved by UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum.

Set for completion in 2018, the project involves building a 350-room ultra-luxury resort next to the existing Jumeirah Beach Hotel. The works will also involve an extensive expansion of the existing yacht marina doubling its current capacity.

The UK’s Broadway Malyan prepared the designs.

Local hotel operator Jumeirah Group operates the Jumeirah Beach Hotel. It recently selected the local/UK Al-Futtaim Carillion for the contract to build the fourth phase of its Madinat Jumeirah development, which is located nearby between the existing Madinat development and Wild Wadi waterpark, close to the Burj al-Arab hotel.

The construction work involves building a 435-room resort hotel with 400 parking bays, three speciality restaurants, lounges, bars, a business centre, swimming pools and a turtle lagoon. There will also be a laundry, plant rooms, chillers and cooling towers to support the hotel.

The client representative is the local H&H. The development manager is South Africa’s Mirage Mille.

In October 2013, Jumeirah Group signed a $1.4bn loan. The company appointed the UK’s Standard Chartered and HSBC, and the local Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) to arrange the deal in May, but received only limited interest from other banks about joining the funding group. Only three new lenders joined the transaction: Dubai-based Emirates NBD, Mashreq and Dubai Islamic Bank.