Dubai Design Centre (DDC), the new facility for home furnishings, interior decorators and accessories, will float tenders for its construction, said a senior official.
Australian architects Bruce Henderson are advising Nakheel on the overall design and development of the project, which will be located on a 4.2 kilometre patch of land at the International City, offeringfive million square feet of net usable prime retail and office space to traders.
Ayoub H. Al Mulla, DDC's customer service manager, yesterday told Gulf News: "Tenders for the construction of the centre will be floated in the coming weeks, with the first phase to be handed over to customers by 2006.
"We have received trem-endous response from investors and home furnishing distributors who intend to set up their showrooms.
"Over 1,000 applications have been submitted to us, so far and we expect this to go up later." The centre is primarily aimed at international and local traders and individual customers from the GCC looking for their home furnishing and accessories under a single roof.
"The DDC also features exclusive exhibition areas, where retailers can showcase or launch a new product, an extensive food court and will be serviced by internal transport," he said.
"We will have a large parking facility with a capacity of 18,000 cars allowing access through 11 entry points each located 250 to 500 metres apart."
International City covers 780 hectares of land, located 12 kilometres from Dubai airport.
