creekside construction chases final deadline as site teams at dubai festival city are pushed to their limits|~|108proj200.gif|~|Al Futtaim Carillion steel workers bending rebar in front of an apartment complex in Marsa Al Khor neighbourhood, DFC.|~|The tenant list for Dubai Festival City (DFC) includes some of the most famous brands and retailing names in the world — and they don’t like to be kept waiting. That is why the site team on the biggest mixed-use development in the Middle East is under acute pressure to ensure the mega-project achieves its deadlines.
Minimising the procurement route to delivering the various elements that make up this monster construction site has been foremost in the mind of developer Al Futtaim, which appointed a new management team to DFC in early 2004 under MD David Glanville-Williams.
The contracting strategies that have been introduced on the project are focused on delivering the buildings and infrastructure quickly, according to Robert David, director of design and construction at DFC. He says: “We’ve introduced a lot of design and build contracting which, until recently, hasn’t been done here very often.
“The reason for this is it shortens the total time and enables the contractor to be procured more quickly than if full design documentation is done for tendering. You can commence construction while you’re still completing the design.”
Coordinating the scale of work on site has called for some
astute management. A project management-based organisation has been established with monthly project control group meetings on each of the projects, to address the issues of safety, time, cost and quality.
“A monthly review process is held for each project and that’s the core of our project management system. From that comes the identification and control of the key issues.”
David says that procurement and supply of materials has been an issue, especially given the over-heated construction market in Dubai. “There’s a huge demand in many areas at the moment and we have to be very careful as to which sub-contractors are selected to execute the works.
“The external façades, the roofs, the stone for the floors… basically there is enormous competing demand in the industry for everything we need. But despite this we’re keeping to our schedules.”
The workforce on site is currently 12 000 but this is expected to peak at around 25 000 later this year, when the intense finishing activities on four high-rise buildings get underway, along with the fit out for the main shopping centre.
This will see an enormous increase in the number of tradesmen on site: “Up until now it’s been predominantly concrete workers, scaffolders and preliminary MEP,” says David. “But we’ll soon be moving into a new phase of intense finishing works.”
This is building up already as progress is made on the golf clubhouse, Festival Centre (the main shopping precinct) the Harbour Plaza building (a 30-floor residential apartment tower), along with the InterContinental hotel, the Festival Tower (31-storey office building), the Crowne Plaza and a convention centre.
Precast concrete has helped to speed up some buildings: “We have used precast concrete in Ikea, the Atrium, the hypermarket and on Plug-Ins and Ace Hardware. We’re also examining using it a lot more in our residential developments that are coming up in the next six to 12 months. But most of the construction to date has used in-situ concrete — more than 550 000 m3 has been poured in the past 18 months.”
Although the pace of work at DFC is dramatic, there are still plenty of construction packages to be awarded: “There are many more contracts to let on the job including the Four Seasons tower, various resort buildings surrounding it, and maybe another 20 buildings between the new [Ras Al Khor] bridge and the Garhoud bridge.”
There is also the balance of the residential programme still to be built. To date, 68 residences are complete with another 370 under construction — ultimately there will be in the region of 19 000 residences on site. All will be available for rent only.
The next construction packages likely to be awarded are the five-star boutique hotel to be built on the Creek around the quay, and some low-rise and medium-rise office buildings towards the Garhoud bridge.
Building in close proximity to the Creek means dewatering of excavations becomes a key element: “As we’re building along the Creek, the ground water level is effectively at the same level as the Creek itself, so every time we build a basement we need to dewater,” says David.
“When dewatering at the Festival Centre, for example, we went down to about 8 m below ground water level,” he adds.
Whereas many construction projects in Dubai are beginning to experience delays, DFC is being built in record time — the Ikea store and schools being prime examples of fast-track operations (each was designed, constructed and opened in just 12 months).
“In terms of the construction process, everything is at different stages,” says David. Of the site’s 15 development zones, some are already up and running: In September 2004, 68 homes in phase one of the Al Badia residential area were finished.
In November 2005 the Toyota showroom was completed and opened at the same time that Ikea opened its doors to the public. The English curriculum Deira School, and the American Universal School, were each opened to students in September 2005.
The next few months of this year will see the opening of the four remaining car showrooms for Honda, Volvo, Lexus and Jeep Chrysler Dodge.
“Our next retail opening will be in the second quarter of 2006 when we open a hypermarket adjacent to Ikea,” says David. “At the same time we’ll also be opening Plug-Ins and Ace Hardware, which will be the biggest outlets for these retailers in the UAE.”
While the golf course opened for play in January 2005, the new clubhouse is in the final stages and is scheduled to open by summer this year. The last quarter of 2006 will see the opening of Festival Centre, which has eight major tenancies and over 400 retail, food and beverage outlets.
Looking ahead to next year, the InterContinental and Crowne Plaza hotels — along with a convention centre and office tower —are all under construction and due to open in the first quarter of 2007.
“We also have a major tower for the Four Seasons’ hotel on the drawing board and a boutique five-star hotel for which the concept is being developed. And we’re just about to proceed with a number of smaller office buildings at the Garhoud bridge end of the site.”
According to David, one of the main challenges of working on the project is how to manage and coordinate so many things that are happening at the same time. “We’ve had to adopt different contract strategies to deal with the situation and as a result we have about 10 different contractors on site,” he explains.
The contractors include: Al Futtaim Carillon, which is doing the roads and associated infrastructure, the major building works including Festival Centre, the Automobile precinct and all current high-rise buildings; Dutco Balfour Beatty Group, which is doing the marine work; Khansaheb is building the clubhouse and the Hillside Village; and Frayland is building the community centre.
Elsewhere, Al Naboodah is building the residential apartment blocks; ECC (Engineering Construction Company) built the two schools; Higgs and Hill (which built Ikea) is completing the Atrium and hypermarket; and Drake & Scull has a contract to design, build and operate one of the largest district cooling systems in the Gulf.
As with the contractors, a variety of consultants have been chosen according to the individual packages: “We have a different team of consultants on each project — each time we’ve been ready to commence another project we go through a competitive process to select the consultants, and then determine our procurement strategy for the contracts.”
With an increasing number of DFC’s elements coming on line, the project’s management team will have their work cut out in ensuring a smooth interface between the public and the remaining construction activity on site. ||**||
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