Dubai World Central masterplan completed

05 May 2006

Beirut-based Dar al-Handasah (Shair & Partners) has completed the masterplan for the Dubai World Central project, formerly known as Jebel Ali Airport City. The 140-square-kilometre city is designed to support Dubai's aviation, tourism, commercial and logistics requirements until 2050 and infrastructure costs alone will run to $33,000 million.

The most advanced component is Dubai Logistics City (DLC), which covers 25 square kilometres and is designed to handle 12 million tonnes a year of air cargo in up to 16 air cargo terminals. DLC will also have its own aviation area, a dedicated cluster for specialised aviation industry suppliers and offering direct apron access, warehouses and cargo handling facilities. It will also have a dedicated labour village, with a built-up area of 350,000 square metres, capable of accommodating up to 40,000 workers in purpose-built surroundings.

Bids are due on 21 May for the DLC headquarters building and the 41,129-square-metre cargo terminal building packages. The local Al-Naboodah Contracting is working on the runway package, involving the construction of a 4.5 kilometre all-weather runway (MEED 17:2:06).

The World Central International Airport (JXB) will be at the heart of the development, and once completed will be 10 times the size of the current Dubai Airport. It has been designed to handle over 120 million passengers a year and the next generation of aircraft, including the Airbus A380 superjumbo.

Other components include the 7.16-square-kilometre residential city, which will offer a combination of freehold and leased quality homes; commercial city, which will feature hundreds of office tower blocks; a golf course resort; and enterprise park.

An internal light rail network will link the whole of Dubai World Central, which will also be served by the Dubai Light Rail.

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