Iraq’s largest real estate development, Empire World, is on track to be completed in the first half of 2017, according to Larry Milam, vice-president of the project’s main contractor, Falcon Group.

The $2.7bn development in Erbil, in the autonomous region of Kurdistan, will include a $230m JW Marriott hotel to be opened in the first quarter of 2017, Milam told delegates at MEED’s Kurdistan Projects 2014 conference in Erbil.

Located in the west of Erbil, the development will include 88 towers and 300 villas over a 750,000-square-metre area. Business towers in the development have already been leased to several international companies including Chevron, Total, Hunt Oil, Taqa, Repsol, DNO and Ericsson. 

When fully completed, the complex will include a cinema, a medical clinic, a fire station, a kindergarten and a mosque.

The 207-room JW Marriott will be built in a joint development with PB Group on an area of 55,000 square metres within the development.

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