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Lagoons project on schedule
A group of engineers working for British consulting firm Halcrow on the $1.1-billion Salam Resort and Spa-Yiti in Muscat, had accurately predicted the Gonu cyclone weeks before it hit Oman.
- By Saifur Rahman, Business Editor
- Published: 00:18 October 7, 2008
- Shaikh Hamdan at the Sama Dubai stand. Faraidooni and others are with him.
- Image Credit: Supplied picture
Dubai: A group of engineers working for British consulting firm Halcrow on the $1.1-billion Salam Resort and Spa-Yiti in Muscat, had accurately predicted the Gonu cyclone weeks before it hit Oman.
Engineers had calculated the cycle of cyclone strikes in the area which is about once every 100 years, and had warned the government about the impending strike.
"Not very many people took them seriously. Then came Gonu — and it devastated the area, as predicted by the consultants," Farhan Faraidooni, executive chairman of Sama Dubai – developers of the Salam Yiti project, told Gulf News in an exclusive interview.
"That's the kind of accuracy we have to ensure while we plan our projects."
Salam Yiti project straddles a wadi which runs through it and gets flooded during the cyclone cycle. The study had helped them avoid waterlogging and damages due to the cyclone.
However, Sama Dubai — sitting on projects worth a massive Dh202 billion ($55.2 billion) in the pipeline — has not been so lucky with its other projects.
The company's flagship project in Dubai – The Lagoons — has been facing some delays.
Last year, the company launched a joint venture with management consultants E.C. Harris to create a project management vehicle to manage all its projects.
Part of problem
"We are facing a lot of challenges in implementing the projects. We are not necessarily the cause of the delays, but part of it," Faraidooni said.
"Our association with E.C. Harris has been a successful one and in terms of project management, we are now 10 times better off than last year."
The company, which had to stop selling and transfer properties on the Lagoons will soon start selling activities, after streamlining the processes in November. The worst for the Lagoon, appears to be over.
Sama Dubai is currently in the process of finalising tenders for the main construction package for its flagship Dubai Towers – the four glass-covered towers rising to 90 floors, worth Dh15 billion.
It will also build 19 towers at the Lagoons.
"We have started mobilisation works for these towers, collectively worth Dh7.5 billion," he said.
Apart from these, it has completed 95 per cent works on the 47-kilometres of quaywall on the creek. It has sold 100 of the 350 plots on the Lagoons.
"The project is unique in many ways. Typically in a project, landscaping and environment represent 30-35 per cent, but in this project, saleable area is about 35 per cent of the land, while the rest is dedicated to landscaping and environment," he said.
"We are now looking at more joint ventures for the remaining plots and are talking to three major developers," he said.
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