Royal Amwaj work close to completion

Construction work on the Royal Amwaj project at the crescent at Palm Jumeirah is gaining pace with more than 80 per cent of the work already complete.

As the September 30 target for the completion of the physical work nears, a team of employees of Gulf Technical Contracting Company (GTCC), the main contractor working on the project, has been putting all efforts to ensure that the best construction standards are maintained to match the needs of the luxury development.

The Swiss-managed Movenpick luxury resort and spa Royal Amwaj will feature 293 hotel rooms and more than 450 condominium apartments.

The Royal Amwaj resort and spa's design is based on Thai architecture and will feature water homes, a beach front restaurant, three lagoons, a large swimming pool, tennis courts, Asian spa, water sports activities as well as business and banquet facilities.

Saleh Muradweij, Executive Director, GTCC, recently spoke to Emirates Business and explained about the progress of the work.

The project was originally scheduled for completion by the end of the first quarter of 2009 but had to be delayed due to design changes.

"The project went through different stages and several changes were made to the original design for various reasons such as to allow and accommodate green building standards and incorporate better quality materials specially in an effort to meet the high standard that is required by the client," said Muradweij.

"There has been a delay on the original target for completion. The main reason being significant design change that was included in the project. Some of the design changes were introduced and took the completion to September 2009. The design changes include changes in the design of pools, lagoons, external work, landscaping and some of the facades for the villas. There was some substantial changes, until the design was finalised in March and April this year," he added.

According to him, the overall progress on the Royal Amwaj has exceeded 80 per cent. "The target date for completion of the physical work is set for September 30. However, the final handover will only be by the end of the year," said Muradweij.

"What's remaining is mostly the external work, especially work on the swimming pools and lagoons and the landscaping. The condominium is complete and fitted out. The work is ongoing in villas and the hotel section," he added. When asked if the changes in the design led to increase in construction cost, Muradweij said: "It did not result in any substantial additions to cost. There were some omissions and additions as well as some value engineering. The overall value of the project remains the same."

Commenting on the green initiatives being adopted at the project, he said: "We have adopted energy saving design standards centralised cooling systems for the buildings and the lagoons and we have installed double layered tinted glasses for windows. We also have used natural architectural finishing materials such as timber, terracotta, solid waste management system – all as part of the Leed certification."

He said: "When we look at the extra cost for adopting Leed standards it only amounts to an additional three to four per cent. The benefits resulting from implementation of these standards are much more."

Construction cost was at its peak during most of 2008 before sliding during the last quarter of the year and further dropping during the first half of 2009. "The major cost that went down was in steel and copper and work that involved the use of steel and copper was already complete and the materials was also procured, so it did not really affect the course of the project itself," he added.

Building on the Marina was specifically a challenge, said Muradweij. "There are a lot of specialties in this particular project. We have made significant technical enhancement such as warm automation, and solid waste management. The water homes, that are built are one of its kind in the whole region. The lagoons are the biggest lagoons in the region," he said.

According to Muradweij, the 16 water homes are built on stilt. Inside the water they are precast structures and not wooden. "We had to use the facilities of special marine contractors to construct the water homes. We also had to adopt very high safety measures to build these homes," he added.

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