Opened in 2005, the Emirates Palace Hotel is the most expensive hotel ever built. Its many attractions include more than 200 fountains

One of the most remarkable symbols of Abu Dhabi’s wealth is the recently opened Emirates Palace. The most expensive hotel ever built, its construction cost some £1.5 billion. The interior is decorated with gold and marble and 1,000 crystal chandeliers. Twenty thousand roses are displayed in its rooms and public spaces every day. There is an archway clad in Italian stone that is larger than the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. The Grand Atrium, the largest of the hotel’s114 domes, is higher than the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, and in the 600 acres of exotic park grounds more than 200 fountains play.

It is the kind of place you might expect to find in one of the richest cities in the world. However, you might not expect one of the world’s richest cities to be located in the desert. Welcome to Abu Dhabi City, the capital of the emirate of Abu Dhabi, the federal seat of government of the UAE, and the country’s oil centre.

Located on a T-shaped island jutting into the Arabian Gulf where, within living memory, there once stood a small settlement of reed and mud-brick huts occupied by pearl fishers, Abu Dhabi City has an estimated population of 1.8 million, the majority of them expatriate workers from countries like India, Pakistan, Egypt and the Philippines. Now mega development plans are afoot to transform the city into a benchmark for 21st century world capitals.

The largest of the seven emirates, Abu Dhabi covers around 87 per cent of the land area of the UAE and sits on 94 per cent of the country’s oil – about 10 per cent of global reserves. In addition, it plans to become one of the top exporters of natural gas, of which it has 5 per cent of the world’s total. According to Moody's Investors Service, the emirate’s nominal GDP per capita reached £30,900 last year, the third highest in the world.

Overflowing with petrodollars as a result of the high international price of oil, Abu Dhabi already has the world’s largest state-owned investment fund to play with. The economy is expanding rapidly, and according to a recent report from the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the emirate is set to attract a total of more than Dh1 trillion in local and foreign capital.
Less well-known than its neighbour Dubai, Abu Dhabi has big plans to raise its profile and become an internationally recognised destination for business and tourism. Billions of dollars worth of real estate projects are planned and construction activity in the emirate is predicted to overtake that in Dubai by the end of the decade.

Foreign direct investment will make a crucial contribution to Abu Dhabi City’s hugely ambitious urban development plans for the next 20 years. The recently unveiled masterplan – Plan Abu Dhabi 2030 – calls for estimated investment totalling £80 billion to transform the city into a major world capital in which 3 million people will live, work and enjoy their leisure.

The plan envisages two main complementary cores. The Central Business District will be the centre of finance and commerce and the main employment hub. Centred on Al Suwwah Island, it will unite into a single area the current commercial districts of Al Suwwah Island, Al Reem Island and Port Zayed, which is to be relocated. Ten or more bridges will knit Al Suwwah and Al Reem Islands into the fabric of the city. Local and federal government offices will be concentrated in a new Capital District, to be located on the mainland to the east of the city, focusing the functions and image of government on a single iconic precinct as in other great capital cities around the world.

These two core districts will be the major centres of office space. A smaller employment and residential area will be created in the Al Bateen Airport redevelopment zone in the Grand Mosque District, at the southeast side of Abu Dhabi Island, and the Lulu Island District will be the location for residential housing units, hotels, resorts, recreational facilities and parks.

Three major industrial districts are to be created. The new Khalifa Port and Industrial Zone will be the location for heavy industry relying on bulk materials imported from abroad, while hi-tech industries will surround the Abu Dhabi International Airport, which has already begun a multi-million dollar transformation. Smaller service-based industries will be allocated to the Mussafah and Mafraq areas, with rail and highway links between all three areas.

The city’s transit network will include a high-speed rail line, originating at the Central Souq train station, connecting downtown to the Capital District, the airport, and ultimately Dubai. A freight rail line will link the new port, the airport, and Jebel Ali with the other GCC countries. There will be at least two high capacity metro lines, and a network of light rail, streetcars and buses that the planners say will ensure that no one ever has to walk more than five minutes to use public transport.

A network of grand processional boulevards are intended to express the scale and importance of the capital. The Capital Boulevard is seen as a particularly important component, linking the Presidential Palace and Emirates Palace to the new Capital District, possibly including seven high arches representing the seven Emirates of the UAE, and terminating at a main capital square.

A continuous framework of planted boulevards and byways will link the community parks and the three major City Parks, making it possible to move around under the shade of trees and reinforcing the vision of the city as a garden on the shores of the Gulf. Limits will be set to the growth for the city to preserve the ecology and prevent an unending, undifferentiated sprawl through the desert to Dubai.

The masterplan has been developed under the direction of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahayan, who succeeded his father as President of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi. It is seen as the fulfilment of the grand design envisaged by Sheikh Zayed, who was the country’s first president. “Abu Dhabi was built on the ambitions of the late Sheikh Zayed, this must be recognised and continued,” says Falah Mohammed Al Ahbabi, Associate Director, Urban Planning, Executive Affairs Authority.

Investment totalling £80 billion is required to take Abu Dhabi into a new era

He emphasises that the key to the development of the city will be measured expansion reflecting Abu Dhabi’s sustainable economy, rather than the explosion of growth witnessed in some other emerging economies. “Abu Dhabi needs to grow, and it will grow, but our future will not be held hostage to uncontrolled expansion,” he says. The development of the city will “respect, be scaled to and shaped by the natural environment of sensitive coastal and desert ecologies.” Land uses and building heights will be carefully monitored.

Planned developments for Yas Island, Saadiyat Island, Al Raha Beach, Al Mina, Al Suwwah and Al Reem Island are already in train. On Saadiyat Island, just off the coast, a £10.2 billion project is under way to turn the emirate into an internationally recognised cultural centre. Iconic architectural designs have been created for branches of both the Guggenheim and Louvre museums.

The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, designed by internationally acclaimed architect Frank Gehry, will be larger than any existing Guggenheim worldwide. In addition to forming its own collection of modern and contemporary art, it will also exhibit masterworks from the Guggenheim Foundation’s global collections. The Abu Dhabi Louvre, a 260,000-square foot complex covered by an umbrella-like roof, designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, will display art from all eras and regions, including Islamic art. The emirate has also pulled off a multi-million dollar deal to borrow works from the Louvre in Paris and stage special exhibitions. The plans for Saadiyat Island also include a maritime museum and a performing arts centre.

Yas Island will become a top international leisure destination, with world-class motor sports racetrack, a Ferrari theme park, a water park, 984,000-square foot dedicated to shopping, golf courses, hotels, marinas, apartments and villas. The island has been announced as the venue for a Formula 1 race in 2009, to be called the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.