Nakheel reclaims 30% of Waterfront island

Dubai: Nakheel, Dubai's master developer, says it has reclaimed 30 per cent of the 400-hectare island of the world's most ambitious urban development project - Waterfront.

With an area of 1.4 billion square feet, twice the size of Hong Kong Island and bigger than Manhattan and Beirut, Waterfront makes up 65 per cent of Nakheel's current landbank.

Matt Joyce, managing director, said: "Visible from outer space, it is an entirely new city master-planned from scratch on a blank canvas. Twice the size of Hong Kong Island, it's 13 kilometres by 7.5 kilometres. It's a monumental project.

"Between 1990 and 2005, Dubai has grown by 71.4 per cent and is one of the fastest growing cities in the world."

Dubai's current population is 1.44 million, but Waterfront intends to house around 1.5 million people and create one million jobs when the project is completed.

The first five phases of the project are completed as more than 20,000 workers and over 3,000 construction vehicles including barges, cranes and dredgers are currently on site.

Waterfront, which will consist of 250 individual communities, is being developed on the last 15 kilometre of natural coastline in Dubai. However, after completion, it will offer more than 70 kilometres of coastline.

"In the next few months, there will be Dh12 billion worth of contracts underway. Especially in infrastructure. We've made a special effort to put in the infrastructure early to enable developers to come in. Infrastructure allows the transfer of people throughout the city in both directions," Conrad Groen, development director, said.

The amount of land being reclaimed each month is put at 3.52 million cubic metres - enough to fill Wembley Stadium three times.

Civil works and infrastructure has already begun on the first phase, Madinat Al Arab and work on the eight kilometre Palm Cove Canal, running parallel to the coast, is 65 per cent complete.

As work on the Burj Dubai, the world's tallest building nears completion, Waterfront is already planning to build one of the world's tallest buildings of its own, Al Burj, in downtown Madinat Al Arab.