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| Located in Dubai, UAE, the Palm Islands, are famous man made artificial islands on which a massive and much-profitable housing infrastructure is being developed. Nakheel Properties, a property developer in the United Arab Emirates has taken the initiations for the development process and has hired world-famous Belgian dredging and marine contractor Jan De Nul and Van Oord for the massive project. |  |
The islands have been christened as The Palm Jumeirah, The Palm Jebel Ali and The Palm Deira.
Each of these islands will resemble the palm tree with a curved top. These islands will be the abode of numerous houses, vacation centers and amusement parks. Situated in the Persian Gulf, off the UAE coast, these Palm Islands will add 520 kilometers to the Dubai beaches.
While Palm Jumeirah and Palm Jebel Ali will be constructed using 100 million cubic meters of sand and rock, 1 billion cubic meters of sand and rock will be used in the construction of the third island, the Palm Deira. These islands, known as Palm Islands in short, will house more than 100 luxury hotels, elite beach side residences, including apartments, villas, water theme parks, amusement parks, marinas, shopping malls, restaurants, health spas, and sports facilities.
The construction of Palm Jumeirah started in June 2001, followed by the renovation work of Palm Jebel Ali. Palm Deira, whose construction work was expected to start in October 2004, will cover 46.35 square kilometers. It had been announced that the Palm Islands will be ready in 10 to 15 years, but with Dubai being hit by financial crunch, the work has almost come to a halt.
The outer border of each Palm's encompassing crescent is a large rock breakwater. The breakwater of the Palm Jumeirah has over seven million tons of rock. Each rock was placed individually by a crane, signed off by a diver and given a GPS coordinate. The Jan De Nul Group started working on the Palm Jebel Ali in 2002 and had ended by the end of 2006. The reclamation project for the Palm Jebel Ali includes the creation of a four kilometer long peninsula, protected by a 200 meter wide, seventeen kilometer long circular breakwater. 210,000,000 m3 of rock, sand and limestone were reclaimed (partly originating from the Jebel Ali Entrance Channel dredging works). There are approximately 10,000,000 m3 of rocks in the slope protection works.
Construction
All the three Palm Islands will have large rock breakwater, which will act as the outer boundary for these islands. There is more than seven million tons of rock in Palm Jumeirah’s breakwater. These have been placed in an individual fashion with the help of a crane, signing off using the diver. Each of the rock has been assigned its own GPS coordinate.
The development work of Palm Jebel Ali was started by the Jan De Nul Group in 2002 and got over in 2006. The renovated Palm Jebel Ali comprises of a peninsula that is about 4 km in length. A breakwater that is 17 km long and 200m wide encircles the peninsula. The renovation work consumed approximately 210,000,000 cubic meters of sand, limestone and rock. The reclamation work of slope protection used about 10,000,000 cubic meters of rocks.
The Palm Jumeirah
The Palm Jumeirah comprises of the trunk of a tree, a crown possessing 17 fronds as well as an encompassing crescent island that has breakwater of about 11 kilometer in length. The island covers about 25 square kilometers and adds 78 kilometers to the beaches of Dubai. The initial phase of Palm Jumeriah’s construction work will be the abode of 4000 apartments and villas.
The residents started shifting to the properties they own at the Palm Jumeirah by 2006, which marked the conclusion of the first phase of development. The 11 fronds of the Island houses about 1,400 villas, while, the trunk’s eastern side is the domicile to approximately 2,500 shoreline apartments in about 20 buildings.
An agreement has been made between Nakheel Properties and Airship Management Services Inc. for bringing one of the largest airships of the world to Dubai. The airship, Skyship 600 is 197 feet in length and 250,000-cubic-foot. This has been done by the developers to celebrate the presence of first residents in the island.
Officials of Nakheel Properties have mentioned that the developer is in the process of including 78 km of beach to Dubai cost. They have also said that the building work of 8 of the thirty-two hotels in the Island have started, which includes the much-boasted Taj Exotica Resort and Spa. This resort was expected to be ready by end of 2008 or by early 2009. The first phase Atlantis, The Palm Resort, which had been slated to get ready by December 2008, was made available to the public on 24 September, 2008.
The land that is present at the mid of Island’s trunk, known as the Golden Mile, was expected to complete during early 2008. But the residents started shifting only during April 2009. The development work of Palm Jumeirah Monorail, which is expected to take about 3 years of time, has kicked off. This will be transit point between the Atlantis Station located on the Island’s crescent and Gateway Station of Palm Jumeriah’s trunk. The monorail between these stations was flagged off on May 6, 2009.
The Palm Jebel Ali
The development work of Palm Jebel Ali Umar island started during October 2002. Once done, The Dubai Waterfront will encircle the Island. Palm Jebel Ali is almost 1.5 times the size of Palm Jumeirah and comprises of one water theme park, six marinas, a ‘Sea Village’, homes that been developed on the stilts as well as boardwalks which form a circle around the branches of the Island. The words from an Arabic poem written by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum have been scripted on the circle.
The building works were adhering to the slated schedule till early days of October 2007, while the breakwater had been developed already by December 2006. Major part of the development work will kick off only after the infrastructure work begins during April 2007 will conclude.
One among the first building on this island is about 300, 000 square meters and had been developed on the design from Royal Haskoning.
The initial phase of the island with the 4 theme parks located on the Crescent will open in 2012, which will be known together under the name of World of Discovery. The development and maintenance works of these theme parks will be handled by Busch Entertainment Corporation. The four theme parks are Aquatica, SeaWorld, Discovery Cove and Busch Gardens. Situated at Crescent’s top, the theme parks will resemble the shape of Shamu’s reminiscent.
The Palm Deira
Nakheel Properties had announced that the construction work of the Palm Deira would commence on October 2004, but the schedule for completion has not yet been disclosed. The island that is expected to be the abode to about 1 million people will be 8 times the size of the Palm Jumeirah and 5 times the size of Palm Jebel Ali. Even though this island was designed to be 14 km by 8.5 km and have 41 fronds, it was shortened to 12.5 km by 7.5 km with 18 large fronds. The island was redesigned due to the change in the depth of Persian Gulf.
About 200 million cubic meters of sand were used for just 20% of the renovation work which got over during October 2007. During 2008 April, it was disclosed by Nakheel that 25% of the work has been completed with which the amount of sand being used to became 300 million cubic meters.
The first phase of this multi-phased island, the Deira Island, will be located along Deira Corniche between the entrance to Dubai Creek and Al Hamriya Port. It has been quoted that this Deira Island will enact the role of “the gateway to The Palm Deira", meanwhile revitalizing the ageing process of Deira. The island’s renovation was carried out with a new design, despite the fact that 80% of its work had got over during April 2008.
This is a classic illustration of the amount of importance and expertise the real estate business has in Dubai. That is why the city is well-known for its inimitable construction structures.
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