UAE construction firm Arabtec has been awarded a AED 778 million ($211.8 million) contract to expand the National Exhibition Centre in Abu Dhabi, the company revealed in a statement to the Dubai Financial Market (DFM) on Monday.
Arabtec said the project is phase two of the centre’s construction and will be completed by August 2008.
Under the contract, Arabtec will build a 60,000 square metre extension to the existing exhibition hall and construct two large parking structures totaling to 235,000 square metres, it said in the statement.
The cost of the construction contract is significantly greater than the AED 580 million ($158 million) price tag Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Company (ADNEC) put on the project when it announced the start of phase two at the beginning of May.
Phase two will see the venue double in size to become the Middle East’s largest purpose-built exhibition centre, ADNEC said.
The centre, which will feature a distinctive u-shape design, will include five additional exhibition halls, a multi-purpose hall with seating for more than 5,000 people, 15 meeting rooms and two multi-storey car parks with space for more than 8,000 vehicles.
Also incorporated in the design is an expansion of the visitor concourse, which will grow to 18,000 square metres to become the largest air-conditioned exhibition concourse in the world, according to ADNEC.
The first phase of the centre was opened in February by HH Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE and Ruler of Abu Dhabi.
The venue has already hosted ten international exhibitions, including the Mother, Baby and Child Show and Citiscape Abu Dhabi.
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