Grand canal

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View of the canal at the beach and amusement pier.

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. Retail open space diagram.

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Detail of canal front promenade retail plaza.

It's 75km long, 150m wide and 6m deep. The Arabian Canal is the UAE's biggest outdoor project.

Of all the projects under way in the region at the moment, the US$11 billion development of the Arabian Canal is without doubt one of the biggest.

The 75-kilometre long canal, currently under construction in Dubai, is the largest canal project in the Middle East since the Suez canal was built in 1859, and is set to radically transform the shape of the emirate as we know it.

Developed by Limitless, the development arm of Dubai World, the canal will be 150 metres wide and six metres deep, enough to accommodate vessels up to 40 metres long.

Starting from Dubai Waterfront, the manmade waterway will flow inland, passing to the east of the new Dubai World Central International Airport before turning back towards Palm Jumeirah.

In addition to the main canal, referred to by the designers as the Grand Canal, there will be a US$50 billion waterfront development spanning 20,000 hectares and stretching for 33 kilometres along the inland section of the waterway.

The development will include marinas, residential communities and business centres.

A key feature of the inland development will be a number of smaller canals, referred to by the designers and developers as ‘canal streets', Ian Raine, development manager at Limitless, tells Commercial Outdoor Design.

"The way the masterplan is being prepared is to provide a complete balanced community in each of the phases so it would be a mix of high density urban centres moving through to more medium density commercial areas to lower density and residential areas," he says.

"There will also be a number of what we are going to call ‘canal streets' within the medium density areas so away from the main canal. In addition, we're creating a number of green areas, parks and open spaces within each development area," he continues.

The concept masterplan for the overall project, produced by urban design and planning firm Calthorpe Associates and the landscape master planners SWA Group in collaboration with Limitless, is now in place and work has begun on the detailed masterplan for the first two phases of the project.

Water will be a central element of the development, above and beyond the central thread of the canal, Kinder Baumgardner, principal of SWA Group explains.

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