Abu Dhabi to build 25 shopping centres

The Municipality of Abu Dhabi City is planning to construct 25 shopping centres in residential districts across the emirate on the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) model in order to meet the daily needs of Abu Dhabi city neighbourhoods. These centres comprise supermarkets, cafes and restaurants in addition to outlets for providing community/government services. The municipality also announced that it will soon offer four community centres (Residential District Centres) through public tenders in Bani Yas, Shawamekh, Samha and Nahda. According to the municipality, preparations are in hand for inviting a number of public tenders to develop community market projects. The centres will be funded, built and operated by the private sector, as per the set parameters and rules. Undertaking these development and investment projects and launching other projects will be in public-private partnership model, in many tourist, recreational, service and commercial fields. The municipality declared that the residential district centre planned in Bani Yas spans an estimated area of about 15,200 square-metres, whereas Shawamekh Centre takes up an area of about 15,000 square-metres. Samha Centre covers an area of about 17,500 square-metres while Nahda Centre will be set up over a plot of 20,000 square-metres approximately. The civic body stated that the said four centres contain a variety of shops, restaurants and cafes, not to mention the community facilities such as health clubs, spas, kids playgrounds, nurseries and adult gyms. According to the municipality, these projects are part of Abu Dhabi City's strategy to develop community-based projects throughout the city, as it aspires to construct a community market network based on the concept of "3-in-1” by the private sector. Each centre consists of three key elements: Community Service Centre, Customer Service Centre and Appropriate Retail Outlets. In the same context, the municipality has worked out a detailed plan to specify the social and economic utilities necessary for the immediate developing of retail outlets, amusement and community service centres in the city. A master plan for community markets has been developed for the entire city, where these projects have been classified per neighbourhood or district according to population density and the type of services required. Each neighbourhood centre serves about 6,000 to 10,000 people, with a gross floor area of about 7,000 square metres. The district centre, on the other hand, serves 30,000 to 40,000 people with a gross floor area of about 21,000 square metres.