Business development

Al Shafar United is the MEP company within the Al Shafar General Contracting (ASGC), Peter Ward went to one of its main projects, Bay Square, in Business Bay, to find out how the firm is progressing on such a massive development.

The world of business is an unforgiving environment and as such companies need surroundings that provide their every need. One such place, currently under construction, is Business Bay.

As the name suggests the development is focusing on attracting companies there, although there will be residential and commercial units on the 64 million square feet site as well.

Developers Dubai Properties are hoping that Business Bay will be Dubai's equivalent of Manhattan in New York or Ginza in Tokyo. It is also seen as a means to gain more respect internationally as a business hub.

One of the major developments in Business Bay is the Bay Square Project. Construction is being carried out by Al Shafar General Contracting (ASGC) and the MEP work was awarded to the Al Shafar United (ASU), a group within ASGC.

Bay Square covers 2.4 million square feet and will contain approximately 575 offices within it. It is hoped it will become a base for small and medium sized businesses in Dubai.

The project consists of 13 towers, 12 of which will be office complexes. All of the towers share a common basement which reaches five storeys below ground and provides covered parking for residents and employees.

ASU MEP project manager Ahmed El Wakil states: "The MEP side of the construction has been going for almost one and a half years. The project is supposed to be completed by August 2009, the whole project.

"It consists of multiple buildings all together, 12 buildings, mostly offices except for one building which is residential. We have one hotel building so there is a total of 13 buildings with a common basement covering all the floor area."

Project challenges

The Bay Square site is dug out in the ground and requires a large ramp to get down to the site. When the construction is complete the land approaching the site will be flat, but it is clear that a lot of excavation has been undertaken just to prepare the area. Right now ASU has a number of staff working on this project, mainly due to the vast size of it.

El Wakil reports: "For MEP right now we have reached 650 staff and that is only labour. With the addition of the staff in the office we are talking about 700-800 in total."

The sheer size of the project has been one of the biggest challenges for ASU during its work, as El Wakil explains: "Almost all of the challenges are coming from the mobilisation on the site because the area is huge, it is very difficult to utilise these areas with the materials and the manpower so this was the biggest challenge for us, the mobilisation. But everything else is going smoothly.

Restaurants, cafes and retail stores will also be present in Bay Square, with studios, one bed and loft apartments available as well. The main use will be office space however, with an estimated 1.6 million feet being assigned to businesses.

Providing air conditioning and ventilation to so many buildings is a big job, and it is no surprise that the developers have opted for district cooling. The system itself is provided by Empower. On the development 655,000 square feet of ducting is being used.

Currently at the site the basement holds a ducting workshop where the ductwork can be manufactured on site. There is also a huge amount of chilled water piping, almost 10km in length, throughout the project.

The diameter of the piping varies throughout the different buildings and is 1inch in some places and up to 16inches in others. El Wakil describes the rest of the air conditioning: "We have a ventilation system that is mainly located in the basement, which consists of more than 300 jet fans. We more than 1,200 fan coil units all over the project and we also have 36 fresh air handling units."

Fire safety

Although there isn't a great deal visibly installed in the project so far, the firefighting system has been set up already. A network of almost 200,000m of steel pipes, has been installed into the building and 900 fire extinguishers will be spread across the development. "We have three pump sets, consisting of 1,000gpm," reports El Wakil.

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