Cityscape 2007 highlights

Two new plots of land in Business Bay, facing the widest part of the Dubai Creek, with a built-up area of 700,000 sq ft will be used to develop a premium office complex similar in scale to Omniyat's hugely-successful project, The Opus, which has been 80% sold out since first being revealed in London five months ago. This new double-plot project will be ready for launch early next year.

Located on Dubai Waterfront - a master development by Nakheel - another new project will face the Palm Jebel Ali and will occupy one of the largest single plots of land available on the main beachfront in an area to be known as Madinat Al Arab. According to the company it will be designed by a star architect, guided by Omniyat's creative and innovative in-house product design team.

Omniyat is already working with some of the world's top international architects in Europe and the US on designing a US$544m multi-use real estate project on this plot of land. The 1.5 million sq ft project will include a 6-star hotel, residential apartments, serviced apartments and a shopping mall. All the apartments and hotel rooms will have a sea view, and will enjoy private access to the beach. Residents in the project will enjoy a public park that separates the plot on one side from the adjoining plot.

At the other end of Dubai, in The Lagoons master-plan being executed by Sama Dubai, a subsidiary of Dubai Holdings - Omniyat has acquired four side-by-side creek-facing plots of land which overlook the Flamingo Wildlife Sanctuary on the east end of the Dubai Creek, just a couple of miles from Business Bay.

Omniyat is currently organising a competition among four leading architects to design a 1.4 million sq ft project in The Lagoons. Four plots of land will be used to create one massive project with a value of more than US$680m. It will have a residential element, a serviced apartment's element, a retail element and a hotel element.

The launch date is expected to be around the start of the second quarter of 2008, with a hat-trick of launches in the first quarter of the year. The three projects have a total area of 4 million sq ft and have a value of US$1.6bn.

Omniyat Properties' CEO Mehdi Amjad, said: "In comparison our first five projects in 2006 had half the area of these three projects - around two million square feet and less than half the value, as the total value of One Business Bay, Bayswater, The Binary, The Gemini and The Square combined is around US$760m. The value of the two projects - The Pad and The Opus US$700m," he added. "The Pad is the project to date of which we are the most proud. It's a clear example of our innovation in design and concept, as we had come up with the concept of a building that reflects the aspirations of what is known as the iPod generation."

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