The master developer behind Dubai’s Motor City has confirmed it has permanently scrapped plans for a F1-branded theme park and revealed proposals for a new mixed-use redevelopment at the site in Dubailand, with a replica of the famous Champs-Élysées area of Paris among the new designs launched at the Cityscape Global real estate exhibition.
Union Properties (UP) previously announced plans for the F1 Theme Park within Motor City, but put the project on hold in 2009 during Dubai’s property crisis. It was one of several projects in the wider Dubailand which were stalled in the downturn.
Ahmed Khalaf Obaid Bin Touq Al Marri, UP’s general manager, told Arabian Business F1-X Dubai would not be revived, with the company focusing on the new theme park plans, which were for the same site. While the new theme park has now yet been named, Al Marri said it would be a mix of “retail, residential and a theme park”.
“Right now we are focusing on the children more than the adult and in our idea (it’s) to mix the theme park between the entertainment and to be educational also,” he said at UP’s stand at the Cityscape Global real estate exhibition in Dubai.
“Bring something new to the theme parks. Not only [will tourists] come, they learn something from it, too.”
Al Marri said the total built up area would be 3.6bn square feet, though the number of units and villas within the project was yet to be determined as it was under negotiation with Dubai Municipality.
The developer last month said it was embarking on six new projects worth AED1.5bn ($408m).
After last month launching the phase one and two expansion of its Green Community as well as a phase three, a new retail area, The Ribbon, UP unveiled at Cityscape a Champs-Elysées-style strip.
Al Marri said the Champs-Élysées area would be fashioned on the famous Paris boulevard with “the same activities as the Champs-Élysées”. However, he said the length of the Dubai version was yet to be defined. “Maybe it is 1km,” he said.
Phase one of the Green community will contain 78 new townhouses on a 30,170sqm plot at phase one of the project and 130 units at phase two on a 41,460sqm site.
The phase two units will contain 74 townhouses and 56 apartments in a series of six-storey blocks. Phase two will also include a 1,265sqm residential area and a 1,607sqm community facility. Tenders for both are expected to be issued next month, a spokesman told Construction Week.
The company will also float tenders for The Ribbon – a new strip mall planned for Motor City with 11 retail units and 16 new food & beverage outlets.
It will be an “inter-connected strip comprising of four commercial buildings which will be housed between Motor City and Arabian Ranches”.
Al Marri said he expected phase one to be finished 12 months after approvals from Dubai Municipality were through.
He expected the theme park, which would be stage four, to be 75 percent finished by the end of 2016.
Al Marri said although phase one and two were sold, it was looking for investors for its other projects, which could alter the project timeframes.
“We are looking for investors more than we are looking for financing support. We don’t want from the banks again.
“We will fund our projects, self-funded from Union Properties, and then if somebody wants to buy the plot from us we’ll give him the design, he will build it as we want.”
He said the Green Community was currently built up at 40 percent of its total master plan area, with 15,000 people calling the area home.
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