Qatar’s Lusail City to be fully ready end-2014

Qatar’s new city of Lusail has started receiving its first residents following the completion of the bulk of its infrastructure and the town will be fully ready at the end of 2014, its developers have said.

Many housing units in the sprawling city, nearly 15 km north of the Qatari capital Doha, have already been delivered to owners after the supply of all essential services including water, electricity and roads, said Khalil Al Sayyed, CEO of the government-owned Qatari Diar Real Estate Company, which owns Lusail.

Quoted by the Qatari Arabic language daily Al Sharq, he said the infrastructure in most of the 38-square-km city had been completed except for three key roads.

“We are working to finish the infrastructure and supply services to those roads…the infrastructure of the entire city will be completed at the end of 2014,” he said.

“But we have already begun delivering housing units to their owners…some tenants have already moved into their flats, including in Jebel Thuailib and other areas.”

Lusail Real Estate Development Company, an affiliate of Diar, is developing the city, the largest single development in the gas-rich Gulf country. Launched in late 2005, Lusail is expected to house more than 200,000 people.

Sayyed said Diar, which was launched  in 2005 by the Qatari Investment Authority, the country’s sovereign wealth fund, has tackled obstacles facing some of its projects abroad, mainly in Turkey, Britain and Montenegro in southeastern  Europe.

“Some of our projects abroad were stalled for some reasons…but we were able in 2013 to restart those projects with full force,” he said.

“Some of them have been re-launched and are now under construction…they include a project in Turkey, where the contractor is in the process of obtaining licenses…other projects are in Montenegro and in Chelsea, UK,” he added, in reference to the company’s USD 4.7-billion Chelsea Barracks development.

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.