At an event today, His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and UAE Defence Minister unveiled the first 3D model of The World project. Positioned to be Dubai’s most exclusive property development yet, The World project will consist of 250 islands strategically positioned to form the shape of the world map. According to the Dubai based developers Nakheel, construction of The World officially commenced last month.

Sheikh Mohammed said, “This project is part of our strategy and vision for the future of Dubai in the coming years. It is also in line with our continued efforts to boost the tourism sector, which we hope will play a major role as part of our policy to diversify sources of income away from oil. This is the first time in the world that an island project of this size and magnitude has been undertaken and I expect it will be a strongly sought after investment”.

The two-stage reclamation and infrastructure development worth US $1.8 billion will be located four kilometres offshore from Dubai, at a point halfway between The Palm, Jumeirah and Port Rashid.

“We are very proud to announce that this vision is already becoming a reality, with the reclamation of the 250 islands having already commenced”, said Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Chairman of Nakheel. “The construction of the islands is expected to take two years and then the infrastructure will be put into place, before Nakheel hands the land over to the investors to develop to their individual requirements, under Nakheel’s supervision”.

Bin Sulayem added, “With only 250 plots of land available for sale we will be offering them to a selected group of investors only. These investors can then choose to utilize the island for private or commercial use”.

According to Nakheel the land and infrastructure only will be sold to investors and then it will be their responsibility to construct the buildings as they require on their islands. It is thought that many investors will choose to develop their island in a theme reflecting the actual country that the island’s shape is based on with some including replicas of monuments and landmarks from the specific countries.

Each island will range between 250,000 to 900,000 square feet and there will be approximately 50 to 100 metres of water between each island. In total the development will cover an area 9 kilometres in length and 6 kilometres in width and be surrounded by an oval shaped breakwater, which will comprise of both a partly submerged reef and above water revetment. Access to the development will be by marine transport only – there will be no road access.

The contract to construct ‘The World’ project has been awarded to Van Oord ACZ, a Dutch dredging and marine company. Sulayem said, “ Van Oord won this project due to their proven record in reclamation projects and their competitive tender”. Van Oord were also the main contractors for The Palm, Jumeirah, which is running ahead of schedule with reclamation.

“We are delighted to win the contract for The World project, which will be the biggest project we have undertaken in the region”, said Koos Van Oord, Chief Executive Officer of Van Oord ACZ. “This project will be more complicated than The Palm, Jumeirah due to its shape and the number of curves it has. However we will once again utilize our very reliable digital geographical position systems (DGPS) to create the exact shapes.

The depth of the seabed at the location of ‘The World’ varies between 11-16 metres and once completed the development will comprise of 25 million tones of rock and 200 million cubic metres of sand.

Van Oord commented that due to the depth of the water they will be able to utilise, for the first time in the Middle East, a Jumbo Trailer Dredger to transport the sand. This dredger, which was only introduced to the market five years ago, can handle 20 to 25 thousand cubic metres of sand at any one time, making it a very efficient machine to utilize. On The Palm, Jumeirah the dredgers utilised could only handle 8000 cubic metres of sand at any one time.

“The lure of owning a piece of this exclusive one of a kind real estate is expected to prove too hard to resist following the outstanding sell-out success of The Palm, Jumeirah and the rapidly approaching sell-out of The Palm, Jebel Ali”, said Wahid Attalla, Director of Operations for Nakheel.

“The World is comprised of islands grouped together to resemble the world’s continents and a few islands have already been reserved by both local and international investors”, continued Attalla.