Waiting patiently in a cool place in Port Rashid for the start of Cityscape on 17th September, is a 5 metre long ceratopsian giant looking and behaving to all intents and purposes like a real live Triceratops. Ilyas and Mustafa Galadari Group, developer of City of Arabia, has flown in this titan to wow the exhibition crowds and give them a ‘taste of what’s to come’ at the Restless Planet dinosaur park, a core attraction in the main residential area of Dubailand. The City of Arabia will in due course be surrounded by over 45 sport, entertainment and tourist attractions grouped into the six themed worlds that comprise Dubailand and make it the largest leisure resort on earth.
Constituting one of the leading private sector projects in the Middle East, The City of Arabia has a number of striking features in addition to the dinosaur park. Most notable is the Mall of Arabia which is the largest retail facility in the region, and, with a GLA of around 10m sq ft, among the largest in the world. Planned on a radial grid, to allow customers easy navigation, and zoned for efficient shopping, the Mall will also include over one hundred food outlets, a cinema complex, bowling alleys, and a major international hypermarket.
Visitors will enter the 85m-high dome that contains the introductory display in the Restless Planet Dinosaur Park via level 2 of the Mall of Arabia. Once inside they will undertake a spectacular journey, experiencing, through dramatic light and sound effects, the story of the birth of Planet Earth and the rise and fall of the dinosaurs. They will then pass into the ride area of the Theme-Park, equipped with over 100 state of the art, life-size, animatronic dinosaurs which will be constructed by Kokoro of Japan, part of an international team led by the Natural History Museum of London.
The City of Arabia development will also feature the Elite Towers, 34 residential and commercial tower blocks; the ‘Wadi Apartments’ a complex of 5 storey buildings in the Mediterranean style, fronting onto the 11km meandering waterway in the Wadi Walk; and 3 hotels. At street level the Wadi Walk will consist almost entirely of cafes, restaurants, convenience stores and boutiques. Designed to be car-free in order to preserve the ambiance of the promenade, residents can reach the Mall on foot or by taking one of the small electric-powered ferry boats which will be a feature of the canal.
Speaking about the City of Arabia project, Ilyas Galadari commented, “Work on the project has entered a new phase with the site prepared, and thirteen thousand piles about to be bored to form the foundations of the Mall and the Elite Towers. Due to open for residential and commercial occupation in 2008, City of Arabia will certainly be the heart of Dubailand ”.
Mustafa Galadari added, “The Cityscape exhibition is a perfect platform for us to showcase the City of Arabia project which is already generating a huge amount of interest. Having our hall-mark dinosaur, in this case a Triceratops, as the centre-piece on our stand is certainly dramatic, but it will also give visitors some idea of just how amazing the Restless Planet dinosaur park, and indeed the whole City of Arabia project, will be when finished”.
