Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) has broken ground on its 11^th office building in the Gate District at its financial zone in Dubai.

The AED205m ($56m) Gate Village Building 11 will be built on plot GV02 adjacent to Gate Village GV01, which is on the boulevard facing Jumeirah Emirates Towers.

Once completed, the building will have a total built-up area of about 20,000 square metres. About 82 per cent will be six floors of office space and the remaining 18 per cent will be retail and food and beverage outlets. There will also be parking for 362 vehicles on three subterranean levels and two podium floors. Completion is expected by the second quarter of 2017.

The project is part of DIFC’s plans to triple in size by 2024. The growth will require significant volumes of new office space. DIFC plans to have 1,000 financial firms working in the free zone by 2024, with a workforce of 50,000 people – a significant increase on the 362 firms in 2014 that employed 17,860 people.

To accommodate these people, DIFC aims to have 5.5 million square feet of occupied space by 2024, up from 2.5 million sq ft in 2014. Much of this space will be developed directly by DIFC and will avoid the problems large financial instructions have in Dubai with strata title deeds in many of the emirate’s commercial buildings today.

DIFC will fund these projects itself. At the end of 2014, it had $184m for the development of two new projects. The first is the AED475m new retail precinct known as the retail spine. The project management consultancy contract was being finalised in June. DIFC received bids from consultants to project manage the development in May.

The 14-month construction contract is due to be tendered in October, with work starting on site by the end of December this year. Completion is planned for the second quarter of 2017.