Masdar relaxes 2016 deadline for $22bn green city

Masdar has relaxed a 2016 final completion date for its signature $22 billion development, it was reported on Tuesday.

Officials at the Abu Dhabi government’s clean energy firm said that the first phase of Masdar City will be finished by the original 2013 deadline with the rest emerging over the next decade.

“Masdar is not a typical real estate development and is not bound by similar pressures of fixed completion dates,” said a Masdar spokesman in comments published by UAE daily The National.

“For Masdar, success will not be measured on the speed with which the city is constructed, but the standards it sets in addressing today’s energy and sustainability challenges,” the spokesman told the paper.

Officials have not referred to the global financial crisis as playing a role in the delay, the paper added.

Sources in the company told the National that the 2016 deadline had long been thought unrealistic and Masdar was now focused almost entirely on the first phase, which includes building the Masdar Institute, the Masdar company headquarters and the surrounding neighbourhood.