Build it and they will come

Waleed Saffy, the newly-appointed CEO of Bahrain’s Durrat Marina development, discusses the project and the demand for more marinas in the Kingdom.

What is the Durrat Marina project?

Durrat Marina will be the largest marina in the Kingdom and will form an important part of the US $ 1.3 billion (BHD490 million) Durrat Al Bahrain development. It's a mixed-use marina project that will have more than 3000 residencies as well as restaurants and a shopping mall. It will also be able to accommodate more than 300 boats and yachts.

How is the project progressing?

It's in the early stages. We are finalising the master plan in the design stage. Design firm Scott Wilson is working on the infrastructure design and New Design Architecture have been appointed to do the concept and the detailed design of phase one. It is going to be a five to six years development programme, completed over three phases.

Phase one should take three years. Land reclamation for the project was done by the Durrat Al Bahrain development, they're now just doing the quay walls. The hand-over of the islands will be around mid 2009 and construction will start in the third to fourth quarter of next year.

How is the current financial climate affecting the project?

From our side of development it is just a matter of when we want to launch the project and, of course, that will be dictated by how the market is. But taking into consideration that construction will take two to three years we expect the market to pick up during that time.

It's actually a good time to be starting construction because the cost of materials is going down and generally the cost of construction is going down. If someone is committed to start now it's a great time to start - don't delay.

Do you think there is demand for large-scale reclamation projects?

Yes, definitely there is still room for expansion and development. We don't see that it will stop soon. The Bahrain government is approaching the international market to make Bahrain a second hub for business as well as tourism and leisure activities.

You can't wait and build the facilities when they come, the facilities and infrastructure must be ready to accommodate people. In regards to supply and demand, I think the GCC has proven it can work in a different way.

Usually you start with demand and then you do the supply. Here is different, you do the supply and the demand will follow. You just have to give them something different, efficient, practical, reasonable and attractive, and it will generate its own market. This is what has happened in the neighbouring countries and I think Bahrain is capable of doing the same thing.

Don't you think the ‘build it and they will come' tactic is risky?

If you go by the books it sounds risky, but the experience in the Gulf is different. The boom in Dubai has been going strong over the last 20 years and people have always been saying it will come down. But it keeps going and going and they have attracted some of the biggest firms and companies in the world.

So for us, to see those companies so close, we need to push to be a part of that market. We can't be as big, but we can still become a part.

There's a lot that can be done in Bahrain. You have to be aggressive and I think that it has been shown in the GCC that being aggressive works as a model. It did work, has worked and will work for us - there is still room.

Are there enough boat owners to cater for all these new marinas coming into the market?

Obviously we wouldn't invest in something like this without knowing the market and the market shows that within the GCC there are still shortages of marina facilities and it is very obvious.

Our specialist marina designer was recently telling me that we need to increase the size of our facilities because of the figures that we see and the growth that is happening.

Obviously with the reclamation done we can't do that at this stage, but if I saw this study last year I would have said that we needed a much bigger marina. I don't want some other developer to make a bigger one as we're finishing and ready to hand over, just because he started after me and saw the market growing.

Can you give any boat ownership figures?

There are approximately 35,000 boats of different sizes in the GCC, but the number of berthing docks is much less than this. The annual increase is around 5% to 10% a year. So that means about 2000 to 3000 new boats in the GCC each year. Are there enough marinas in the GCC - no.

How important is it to have the "biggest" marina?

The biggest, the tallest the largest - these words are becoming very attractive in the region and people are getting obsessed with these things. When you say what is the difference between the Durrat Marina and the Amwaj Marina, I can say Durrat is the biggest.

Do you think there's a link between the culture in the GCC and people enjoying having the biggest, the best, the fastest, and so on?

I can tell you that this is true and we can see that there are certain cities within the GCC that are basically competing with each other. Some might say that it is illogical to build things on this basis, but that is not the issue.

If I'm going to build a tower and the market says there's a good chance that it is viable, then he will just add a few more storeys to make it taller than the other one and then it goes in the book and it goes internationally. I don't think it is to a great extent in Bahrain but definitely this is there within the culture - say he has a Porche, I'll get a Lamborghini.

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