First stage of Middle East's largest shopping, leisure and entertainment project starts

The construction of 5000 sq metres of site offices, management facilities plus stores and equipment warehousing heralds the start of the programme to build the 200,000 sq metre complex which will include the first winter playground in the Middle East, complete with a huge ski slope. The first phase, incorporating the winter playground, shopping mall and the biggest Carrefour hypermarket in the region, is scheduled to open in September 2005.

"We have entered the final phase of preparation before commencing construction of Souk Al Nakheel itself," said Peter Walichnowski, chief executive of MAF Investments LLC, Majid Al Futtaim's property development and management arm. "The site management and design team, which will number more than 100 professional staff by the end of the year, is now moving onto the site."

Even excluding the ski slope, the size of the retail, entertainment and leisure elements of Souk Al Nakheel will be 50 per cent larger than Deira City Centre, the Majid Al Futtaim flagship mall in Dubai and the emirate's top visitor attraction.

"Detailed designs for Souk Al Nakheel are now finalised and we shall soon be able to announce the full and final plans for this extraordinary project," added Mr Walichnowski. "We are already well down the road in negotiations with a number of world brands and major international and local retailers. We are confident that we shall have signed pre-letting contracts with the anchor tenants we want two years ahead of opening the first phase of Souk Al Nakheel."