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Under-performing partners, green regulations, and cash-strapped investors are among the factors that have caused serious delays to Al Attar Properties' Vue De Lac development in Jumeirah Lake Towers. Project manager Bipin Balakrishnan spoke exclusively to Construction Week about the trouble-plagued towers.
Al Attar Properties is in danger of redefining the word delay in its quest to build three towers in Dubai's Jumeirah Lake Towers (JLT) development.
The Vue De Lac towers, in plots K1, K2 and K3, were due for final handover in September 2007, almost two years ago. Today, foundation work is complete, but main construction is yet to begin, much to the chagrin of the project's investors.
But project manager Bipin Balakrishnan said last week that a new contractor - Goldline Contracting - had just been appointed, and insisted Al Attar was putting its troubles behind it.
"We terminated our contract with the original contractor because they were not performing," he said. "We saw they were not professional in their approach and lacked the experience in constructing such buildings."
The termination procedure took three months and the project was retendered. "We should be able to finalise the bank guarantee within a month," Balakrishnan said, "and then we will start construction."
The value of the new contract with Goldline was not revealed, but Balakrishnan said it had increased to accommodate green regulations.
But the lack of progress made by the original contractor begged the question: how did Al Attar know that the original contractor was not up to the task if it had not yet begun main construction, and why were they awarded the contract in the first place?
"We saw the preliminary drawings that had been submitted and knew they were not up to the task," Balakrishnan said. "They were awarded the contract because we had an old consultant in place at the time, and sometimes, the consultant has a binding agreement [with a contractor]," Balakrishnan added. "Sometimes that happens."
A new consultant, National Engineering Bureau (NEB), has since been appointed to the project.
Guarantees
So the big question: Could Balakrishnan guarantee that construction will begin this month? "By the end of this month maximum, the mobilisation will start," he said, but maintained that this was conditional on obtaining a bank guarantee.
Goldline Contracting chairman Dr Navjit Anand backed Balakrishnan when contacted by Construction Week saying, unprompted, that "this month we will begin construction."
So after battling with partners that were "not performing" and imposed green design changes, Al Attar must have thought the worst was over - when along came the global financial crisis.
"The bank guarantee has delayed us because nobody wants to put their fingers into the fire," Balakrishnan said. "The bank takes time to study the company and decide whether it is able to [provide a guarantee]."
Balakrishnan confirmed that the money that has been collected to date from investors was held in an Escrow account, though when asked if all of it was there, he replied, "As per the rules and regulations, whatever has to be done has been done and will be done. That is the scenario."
