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The Al Habtoor Group announced the appointment of China Railway 18th Bureau Group Ltd. as the main contractor for its new pioneering project, the Al Habtoor Tower in Al Habtoor City in the heart of Dubai, with a total investment value of 3.7 billion dirhams.
Khalaf bin Ahmed Al Habtoor, Founder and Chairman of the Al Habtoor Group, said: “I am very pleased to welcome the China Railway 18th Bureau Group as the main contractor for the implementation of Al Habtoor Tower.” He added, “In light of the complexities involved in such a project, which requires a progressive and unique approach in the field of construction, choosing the right contractors to carry out the construction work was of paramount importance to the work team and to me personally. Our goal is to construct the Habtoor Tower according to the highest quality standards in record time.” .
Al Habtoor continued, “The request for proposals to participate in the tender has been published nationwide. We initially selected 10 bidders, then reduced the number to three main bidders as part of an extensive process. We have received offers from European, local, Indian, Chinese and Middle Eastern companies.”
He pointed out that the selection of the China Railway 18th Bureau Group was based on a list of criteria in its priorities: adherence to the time limit set for the completion of the project, which is 36 months, and full technical compliance with advanced quality standards, in addition to the company’s successful record in major projects.
It is noteworthy that the “Al Habtoor Tower”, which costs several billion dirhams, will be the largest residential building in the world, as it includes 1,701 apartments on an area of 3,517,313 square feet, distributed over 81 floors (G + 7 + 73) above the ground.
Regarding the unconventional building style, Al Habtoor said: “This project involves many challenges. This structural system is being implemented for the first time in Dubai and has been validated through a detailed engineering review by world-renowned experts from Structural San Francisco, Imperial College London and Terrasol Paris. We chose to salvage the existing structure rather than demolish it and build from scratch at a lower cost; Because that would have meant wasting a huge amount of cement and sand, more than 3,000 truckloads.”
He added, “This is why we chose to adopt an innovative and sustainable approach, using the top-down construction method. Where we use very heavy equipment from the Bauer company (the contracting party for the implementation of pile foundations), each of which weighs between 60 and 100 tons, to carry out work on the current building, by reusing the existing structure.
Al Habtoor continued, “When the project is completed, our carbon footprint will be less than half that of similar construction work. Where building one square meter of similar projects would normally be one ton of CO2, using our method, our carbon footprint would be less than 0.5 tons per square metre. Environmental experts are currently evaluating Al Habtoor Tower for LEED Platinum certification, the highest authority on green building rating systems around the world.”
