Dinosaurs and more at Dubai's biggest mall

The lifelike prehistoric creatures at City of Arabia's Restless Planet will be built with sensors so they can follow people.

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - August 5:  On site at the City of Arabia project in Dubai on August 5, 2008.  City of Arabia is a 20 million square foot development at the heart of Dubailand which will consist of business offices, residential apartments, shops, galleries, restaurants and a variety of attractions, including  Mall of Arabia and the Restless Planet dinosaur theme part.  Pictured are some plastic dinosaur parts which will be put together and erected.  (Randi Sokoloff / The National) *** Local Caption ***  RS027-CityofArabia.jpg
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DUBAI // Lurking behind a billboard on Emirates Road, a dinosaur lies disconcertingly in pieces among the sandy foundations of what will become Dubai's biggest mall and part of a development that will be home to 40,000 residents. The City of Arabia, which will one day be the "Heart of Dubailand", is still in its infancy, with the highest structures standing just three storeys tall. But Alex Vacha, the deputy director for projects, says it is on track and the first apartments will be handed over at the end of next year.

The 20-million-square-metre development, which will cost US$5 billion, will be done in two phases. "We've done things right by laying the infrastructure first. Building the rest is the easy bit," he says. "We work from the middle out and we have all the infrastructure in place now and the contractors are moving in to start construction. Building the towers can be done quickly but the complicated part is placing the pylons, which is time consuming. It takes at the most a week to put a floor on a tower."

The developer, the Ilyas and Mustafa Galadari Group, expects 40,000 people to be living in the City of Arabia by the time it is completed in 2012. Where the Mall of Arabia will be, stand four cranes. The nearby Restless Planet, which will house replica dinosaurs, opens in 2010. The mall will link with the dinosaur theme park, but "there's more to this than dinosaurs", says Mr Vacha. Nevertheless, the dinosaurs will be a prime attraction, and groups from around the globe are showing interest in the initiative.

"We have the Natural History Museum of London on board, along with Kokoro Creations from Japan, Dr Jack Horner, the real-life inspiration for the book Jurassic Park, and artistic director Yves Pepin, who is currently working on the Beijing Olympics, so all these countries will be interested to learn how they are getting on here," said Jocelyn McBride, the corporate communications and marketing manager for the group.

The park, with its lifelike collection of animatronic dinosaurs, aims to transport visitors to the Jurassic era and will feature amusement rides, Earth-science museum and planetarium. Kokoro Creations, which has been manufacturing dinosaurs for the past 30 years, is halfway through its order of 100 models for the project. Most of the finished animals are still awaiting shipment to the UAE from a warehouse in Japan. T-rex, dromaeosaur, velociraptor and edmontosaurus are among the 36 species planned for the park.

"They really are so lifelike, they are amazing," said Mrs McBride. "They will be built with sensors and will follow people around and, of course, Dr Jack Horner will be making them as lifelike as possible." To give an idea of the size of the dinosaurs, "one of them will have to put in before the roof goes on". The Natural History Museum in London will lend part of its collection to the museum section and will provide educational information.

But Mr Vacha, who is overseeing the entire City of Arabia project, has more than dinosaurs on his mind - he has 1.85 million square metres of land to develop, including the Wadi Walk, a 10-kilometre canal system surrounded by shops, offices and apartments, along with 34 towers and a number of hotels. The mall is expected to be the largest in the Middle East. In fact, says Mr Vacha, "You will not be able to walk around the mall in one day as it is so big."

All projects were on track, said Mrs McBride: "A lot has been done here. We wanted to build a community instead of individual towers with no connections. There will be a hospital, schools, police station and a fire station. People will not have to leave. It will be the downtown of Dubailand." The development still looks like a sand pit but the infrastructure has been laid down and the wadi bridges are complete. The next big phase for the development will be a new interchange across Emirates Road that will link the Mall of Arabia and the rest of the development with a new road that will run directly from Sheikh Zayed Road.

"We are putting all this in first. It is a lot easier to build from scratch than trying to build over an existing roundabout or exit," said Mr Vacha. Some of the best plots and shop locations have been snapped up by investors, with 86 per cent of retail space in the mall already spoken for and 85 per cent of Wadi Walk sold. The first phase of the mall opens in 2010. @Email:eharnan@thenational.ae