Palm Deira
Palm Deira is one of the three artificial islands in
Dubai, for which construction and development plans were
announced in the year October 2004. It is well connected to
the airport and is just half an hour drive away from it. The
construction work is being carried out by the famous company
Nakheel Properties – a famous property developer of UAE. The
Island is very large and in order to carry out the work of
reclamation easily, work was planned to be carried out in
different phases, throughout the island.
The original design of Palm Deira that was first announced,
was much larger (8 times) than Palm Jumeirah. It was planned
to house nearly 1 million people. However, the original plan
had to be changed due to the change in the depth in Persian
Gulf. A redesign of the plan was made again in the year 2007.
This brought a change in its area to a great extent. Earlier
it was planned for a 14 km (8.7 mile) by 8.5 km (5.3 mile)
island with 41 fronds. This was now changed to 12.5 km (7.76
mile) by 7.5 km (4.66 mile) island with 18 larger fronds.
Since the development was planned in phases, the first plan
was the creation of Palm Deira Island. This portion of the
project was just alongside the Deira Corniche. This is planned
to be like a gateway to the Palm Deira and is strategically
located between Al Hamriya Port and Dubai Creek. This is
thought to help and bring in a great deal of development to
the region.
As per the plans, the construction and developmental work
started in the island slowly and steadily. Nearly 20% of the
islands reclamation was over by the early days of October
2007. In this entire work near 200 million cubic metres were
used. By April 2008, the work had progressed much faster. It
was announced that almost a quarter of the Island was
reclaimed. It had used a further 100 million cubic metres of
sand in the process.
Nakheel Properties have several plans for the development of
the region. Palm Deira promises to offer international living
for all its residents. It is planned to be a truly unique
tourist villa and one of the most sought after tourists
destinations of the world. The residents can experience world
class living conditions in one of the most stunning crescent
shaped islands. It is planned to have some of the most
magnificent villas, townhouses, hotels, resorts with several
parks, marinas and beaches for the residents. There would be
more than 8000 villas along with several shopping malls,
entertainment zones, sports complexes, clubs and different
kinds of public amenities. It would have been one of the most
luxurious residential properties of the world – perhaps the
8th wonder of the world.
However, once more a new design was introduced for the Palm
Deira project in the year 2008. This new plan reduced the
construction of the site to a great extent. Unfortunately
construction had to be stopped for this project site due to a
financial crisis faced by the Nakheel Properties.