Emaar Square ... luxury living.

Emaar signs $500m deal with banks

Emaar Properties, the global property developer, has signed a new financing facility amounting to $500 million to develop Emaar Square in Istanbul, Turkey.

The deal has been signed with a consortium of banks including Standard Chartered Bank, Emirates NBD Capital and HSBC Bank. The facility will be repaid in seven years.

Emaar Square is the second mixed-use development by Emaar in Turkey. It spans 73,000 sq m, and offers luxury living in an urban neighbourhood in the city.

The development comprises over 1,000 luxury homes, a 180-room five-star hotel, a wide range of leisure facilities, offices, and a world-class shopping mall which will be the largest in Turkey.

SmartGlass to tap Middle East

SmartGlass International, a premium manufacturer of electronically switchable privacy glass, said it is intensifying its expansion drive in the Middle East to take advantage of a new surge in property development and demand for premium-quality electronically switchable glass solutions.

SmartGlass International guarantees one of the lowest lead times in the market and is said to be the only company with a certified ingress protection rating of X7 (the product has been tested submerged one metre underwater with no defects) allowing for SmartGlass to be used in the bathrooms of some of the world’s leading hotel brands.

Burj Rafal to be launched in June

Rafal Real Estate Development Company plans to inaugurate Saudi Arabia’s tallest residential tower, Burj Rafal, in June this year.

Standing 308 m tall in capital Riyadh, the tower will also house the kingdom’s first Kempinski Hotel. The Burj Rafal community is located at King Fahd Highway in Al Sahafa district in the north of Riyadh. The construction work, which started 18 months ago, is due to be completed by April, said Majed Al Hogail, CEO of Rafal Real Estate Development Company.

The tower is a landmark of 70 floors, with 440 residential apartments.

Plans to expand Bahrain airport

The Bahrain Airport Company (BAC) has announced plans to further expand Bahrain International Airport (BIA) this year. The project will include expansions to the main passenger terminal building and the construction of a major service centre.

Opened in 1994, Bahrain International Airport currently serves a maximum of nine million passengers per year. Under the current plan, the airport’s capacity would expand to 13.5 million passengers per year.

Atkins names Qatar operations chief

Engineering and design consultancy Atkins has appointed Rod Stewart as managing director for its rapidly growing business in Qatar.

Atkins has quadrupled in size in Qatar during the past 18 months to around 400 people and is working on some of the state’s highest profile infrastructure projects. Stewart will be responsible for spearheading the company’s continued strategic growth throughout its key sectors. He joins Atkins from Wates Group, where he was group production director. Prior to that, he held senior positions at both Hyder and Halcrow.

Sakana financing for Tubli Homes

Bahrain-based Sakana Holistic Housing Solutions, the Islamic mortgage finance provider, recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Master Group – Bahrain, which deals in construction, properties, project management services, to provide property consulting services and home financing to Tubli Homes, a residential project consisting of 12 villas in Bahrain.

The three-storey villas will have a built-up area ranging from 318 to 335 sq m and will include a majlis, living room, dining area, visitor lounge, kitchens, four bedrooms, maid’s room, laundry room, two car ports, passenger lift, central spilt air-conditioning and landscaped garden in addition to a swimming pool in some villas. The project is expected be handed over by November this year.

Danube launches showroom in Doha

Dubai-based Danube Group has launched a 5,000-sq-ft showroom in Doha, Qatar, in association with Dyarco to meet growing demands of retail customers. Situated in the heart of the city, the showroom has been launched in addition to an existing facility that caters to customers from the industrial areas.

“To accommodate the overwhelming demand of customers in the retail area, we opened a new commercial place to showcase our ever expanding product line,” said Anis Sajan, managing director of Danube Group.

The new showroom will cater to designers, carpenters and contractors who will now be able to view an extensive range of melamine MDF (medium density fibreboard), wood, timber, structure steel, ceiling, gypsum boards, sanitary and hardware.

R&M solution for Saudi Arabia

Reichle & De-Massari (R&M), the Swiss cabling solutions specialist, is to launch its groundbreaking data centre solutions featuring the multiple-fibre push-on connector as well as its multi-fibre termination push-on system and raised floor box on the Saudi market.

R&M’s solution is said to be ideal for establishing a strong foundation for a reliable and robust data centre. With R&M’s customised solutions, IT decision-makers can choose an optimised solution tailored to fit their specific data centre needs, regardless of industry vertical or the complexity of their current network infrastructure. Scalability is also assured thanks to forward looking design aspects, which allow for easy migration to bandwidth speeds up to 100 gigabytes.

Project success for Turner & Townsend

The global programme management and construction consultancy Turner & Townsend recently delivered value engineering services to Muscat’s new sewerage network on behalf of Associated Consulting Engineers (International).
This first phase of the Oman project covered the country’s Bausher region and marks a significant stage in Haya Water’s ambitious wastewater infrastructure upgrade programme. As value manager for the project, Turner & Townsend provided cost analysis and a review of the final design, building upon its value engineering services in the earlier design phases and involvement as pre-contract cost managers.

The newly established Oman office has also been awarded the programme management contract by Ultra Electronics to support the delivery of operational and security systems and the full suite of IT networks required for the on-going development of Muscat International and Salalah airports.

Distributors visit Terex HQ

More than 50 Terex distributors from around the world, including the Middle East, travelled recently to the home of Terex trucks in Scotland, UK.

Distributors from Africa, Asia, France, Norway, Russia and the Middle East visited the manufacturing facility where sheets of metal are transformed into rigid and articulated trucks, some of which have payloads of up to 100 tonnes. During the visit, Terex representatives saw each stage of the manufacturing process, from assembly and painting to fabrication and quality checks.

New Volvos unveiled in Oman

General Engineering Services (Genserv), the Volvo Construction Equipment (VCE) dealer for Oman, has launched three new high-powered Volvo machines on the market. They include the 37-tonne EC380D and 47-tonne EC480D excavators, which are designed for heavy digging and lifting and are fitted with six-cylinder diesel engines, and the  L250G wheel loader, Volvo’s first in the 35-tonne class.