Plans for a vast new mall to be built on what was originally planned to be Dubai's Palm Deira could come a step closer after Nakheel appointed architects to oversee the building of a 620,000-square-meter mall on Deira Islands.
Nakheel awarded a contract worth nearly Dh40 million to RSP Architects, Planners and Engineers to act as design and supervision consultant on the huge new shopping centre which it said will ultimately comprise more than 200,000 square meters of leasable space.
By comparison Dubai’s second largest shopping centre, Mall of the Emirates currently comprises 234,000 square meters of leasable space and Abu Dhabi’s Yas Mall which will become the second largest mall in the UAE when it opens in November comprises 235,000 square meters of leasable space.
Nakheel said the new mall would include “hundreds of shops, cinemas and a wide variety of cafes and restaurants.”
It will be located on Deira Islands, a scaled back project of four linked islands of resorts, apartments and shops, which had originally been envisaged as part of the largest of Nakheel’s three vast man made palm islands in Dubai.
Nakheel added that the Deira Islands Mall would be part of a “new waterfront city” which would also include a night market, a marina large enough to accommodate yachts, a hotel and an amphitheatre which can hold 30,000 people.
“The demand is definitely out there for new malls and entertainment venues in Dubai,” said Stuart Gissing, regional director at Colliers international in the UAE. “Building another 200,000 square meters may seem like a big number but this is a long term project and its success really will depend on the sort of entertainment offering which it includes. Certainly super regional malls are performing strongly at the moment.”
lbarnard@thenational.ae
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