A joint venture of Italy’s Impregilo and the local Libyan Development Investment Company has won an estimated $387m contract to build a convention centre and conference hall in Tripoli.  

The project was commissioned by Libya’s Organisation for Development of Administrative Centres (ODAC). British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid will design the three-building project.

It is scheduled for completion in 2013 and will include halls large enough to accommodate 3,500, 1,500 and 500 people.

The complex has been designed to include commercial offices, retail space, restaurant facilities, covered car parks, a technology control centre and public spaces.The finished buildings will be used to host political and administrative meetings as well as cultural events.

The project will be built along the coast in west Tripoli, between the capital city’s central business district and the Green Belt, a landscaped urban belt planned to surround the Libyan capital.

The convention centre/conference hall award is the latest in a long history of work by Impregilo in Libya. It is already working on the construction of three university campuses at Misurata, Zliten and Tarhunah, and over the past 20 years, Impregilo has built airports in the cities of Kufra, Benina, Misurata, El-Wotia and Sirte. It is also responsible for ports in Ras Lanuf, Benghazi and Homs, parliamentary buildings in Sirte and industrial districts in Ras Lanuf and Misurata.