Dubai for Life

The Dubai Mall is an enormous mall being built in Dubai, UAE, by Emaar properties, as part of the ‘New Dubai’ project. Developers claim it will be the largest mall in the world when completed. It will cover a total area of 12.1 million ft², with 10 – 15 individual smaller malls built inside it, consisting of 9 million ft² of shopping retail space (comprising of a total of 1200 stores).

Featured attractions include the world’s largest gold souk; the 850,000 ft² Fashion Island; one of the world’s largest aquariums; an Olympic-sized ice skating rink; Oasis Fountain Waterfall; WaterFront Atrium; a view of the (soon to be completed) world’s tallest building, Burj Dubai. The mall has already won five awards. It won two awards at the Retail Future Project Awards at MAPIC, Cannes, in 2004, for Best Retail Development Scheme (Large), Best Use of Lighting in a Retail Environment. And the Dubai Mall brochure has won three awards at the Summit Creative Awards 2005, in Portland, Oregon; Gold award for Best Art Direction / Graphic Design, Silver award for Best 4-colour B2B Brochure, and Judges Special Recognition award.

The mall is being built by a Joint Venture of Dutco Balfour Beatty and AGCCC for client Emaar Properties and was scheduled to be completed in 2006, claiming to be the size of 50 “international-sized football(soccer) pitches”. It is now expected to be completed in late 2008.

Currently, the largest mall in the world is believed to be the South China Mall in Dongguan, China, spreading over 9.6 million ft²

View the Dubai Mall Video by Emaar