Curtain starts to rise on Executive Towers, Dubai
Media
11/04/2008
Progress is nearing completion on the Executive Towers project as the contractor, Al Habtoor Engineering, begins to offer the first of over 2,200 apartments for inspection and handover. The handover process promises to be a complicated logistical exercise and has required close liaison between all the key stakeholders to agree both the strategy and levels of involvement from each party. A particular concern was to ensure that the client’s facilities manager was fully involved in the process to minimise the issues when the homeowners are finally called to take possession of their new property.
Elsewhere on the project, the tower façades are now nearing completion with the contractor pushing to finish all the silicon works before the extreme summer temperatures in Dubai begin to create difficulties. All that will then remain is to remove the protective plastic covering from the aluminium and glass cladding panels to finally reveal the contemporary architectural design.
To close out the project, the labour force has now peaked at over 10,000 people with all the finishing trades working in the apartments and podium areas. In order to manage the daily movement in and out of the project of this huge number of staff, the contractor has had to implement a very comprehensive logistics plan which takes full account of the ever changing traffic situation in Dubai. This has not been without its difficulties as even a small accident on one of the roads leading to the project can delay the arrival or departure of the contractor’s buses. The contractor then has to deploy large numbers of logistics supervisors and security guards to coordinate, direct and manage the safe movement of labour around the site.
Mace too has increased the number of staff on the project with a dedicated team to help monitor and manage the close out process and ensure that the client’s expectations are well and truly met. This has already started to show benefits with several quality issues being caught early allowing enough time to agree solutions prior to handover.
The first complete tower is currently programmed to be handed over by the end of July 2008 with the remaining towers following by the end of September. This will then leave the team free to focus on finishing the outstanding works to the podium, villas, and landscaping, with final project handover expected by the end of the year.
The Executive Towers project comprises ten residential towers ranging from 28 to 52 storeys in height and accommodating some 2,151 individual apartments in all. Together with an office tower, they sit on top of a three level podium structure which provides not only the 3,500 car parking spaces but also accommodates 60 residential villas, eight boutique office villas, two spa and health clubs, and a retail mall with 184 units.
A Mace team is also project managing the Business Bay Hotel within the same development, a 312 key, five star hotel for international operator Jumeirah.
Images of the project [flickr.com]
