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MIDDLE EAST'S FIRST SNOW PLAYGROUND FOR DUBAI

Majid Al Futtaim launches the Next Generation of Entertainment-Leisure-Shopping Centres

Jacob Thomas

Dubai: Snow is forecast for Dubai in two years time, turning the city into a winter sports resort with downhill skiing and snowboarding, an ice skating pond and an alpine village where children can build snowmen, go tobogganing and play with snowballs.

For in late 2003, the Majid Al Futtaim group will start progressively opening Souk Al Nakheel, a huge development fronting the Sheikh Zayed Road which will introduce the next generation of entertainment, leisure and shopping centres to the region. And at its heart will be the first snow playground in the Middle East - with real snow.

Jeff Rossely, Group Vice President, Property Development, said: "The concept of the 'next generation' complex places a major emphasis on entertainment and leisure allied to world class shopping. With our winter snowland, we will be creating a true destination at Souk Al Nakheel, one that will be attractive to foreign tourists as well as to local residents and visitors."

Overall, Souk Al Nakheel will have a strongly Moroccan theme, recreating the exotic atmosphere of Marrakesh and Casablanca during the golden period of Moorish architecture. It will include 60,000 sq m of retail stores, a 20,000 sq m Carrefour hypermarket and parking for 5000 cars.

The entertainment and leisure facilities will cover an extraordinary 45,000 sq m, including a 2000 seat cinema complex; a food court, coffee shops and themed restaurants totaling 126,000 sq ft; a multi-lane bowling alley; a roller blading and skateboarding area; and the largest rock climbing wall in the Middle East.

The snow playground.will include a vast ski slope, bigger than any similar project in the US or Europe - 320 metres long with a 70 metre fall. Served by a state-of-the-art ski lift, the slope will offer downhill runs graded for skiers and snowboarders from beginners to experts. The whole snow complex will be enclosed under a huge high tech snow dome where fresh snow will fall every night in a temperature-controlled environment.

The major on-site earthworks for Souk Al Nakheel have already been completed and construction is scheduled to start in the middle of next year. The project will open progressively from late-2003 through to completion the following year.

The creation of Souk Al Nakheel is Majid Al Futtaim group's response to major shifts in the residential and visitor populations predicted over the next seven years. According to official Dubai figures based on currently planned residential and tourist areas, the population south of the Defence Roundabout on the Sheikh Zayed road will rise 320 per cent in the decade up to 2008 while the increase elsewhere in Dubai will average about 57 per cent.

Currently 500,000 people are within a 15-minute drive of the Souk Al Nakheel site, rising to 630,000 by 2008. And the official prediction is that by 2010, 40 per cent of Dubai's population will live in the southern corridor.

In addition, the number of foreign visitors is predicted to climb to 5.5 million by 2004, growing to 6 million by 2008.

Jeff Rossely continued: "Population and visitor growth from Jumeira Beach to Jebel Ali will be a staggering six times faster than the rest of the city put together, yet almost all recreation and leisure facilities are in the city centre.

"Future facilities must be placed where the need is - and will be - greatest and where they can contribute most significantly to the diversity of Dubai. We need to build true resorts to the south, which will not only serve residents and visitors but which will also be major tourist destinations in themselves.

"We have thoroughly researched projects similar to Souk Al Nakheel in Europe, Asia and the US and they have proved highly successful. In addition, we know from our exhaustive studies of snow playgrounds in the UK, Germany and Japan that ours will attract new visitors to Dubai from around the region and beyond." (keralamonitor.com)