Dubai Festival City (Arabic: دبي فستيفال سيتي) is a large residential, business and entertainment development in the city of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Touted as a "city-within-a-city", Dubai Festival City is the Middle East's largest mixed-use development: all elements for work, living, and leisure will be contained within the project. Once completed Festival City will comprise a series of residential communities, numerous hotels, malls, a golf course and other entertainment sites, and a full suite of public services, including schools.
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Construction of the development, which was undertaken by Al Futtaim Carillion,[1] began in 2003 and is expected to take 12 years. The project spans 3.8 kilometres (2.4 mi) of water frontage on the eastern bank of Dubai Creek and is 2 kilometers (1.2 mi) from Dubai International Airport. As of mid-2006, investments in the project had exceeded 11 billion AED (3 billion USD).[2]
Festival Centre is home to Dubai’s premier concerts and festivals and has hosted world class entertainers such as Carlos Santana, Maroon 5, Scorpions, Queen, Tamer Hosni, Kylie Minogue and Shah Rukh Khan. It has also presented Dubai with a wide array of festivals from the Emirates Airlines International Festival of Literature through to Dubai Desert Rock Festival and Dubai Bike Week. Festival Centre hosts events, parades, entertainers and musicians each week ensuring families are always engaged and rewarded for their visit.
The development includes two hotels and a long term stay serviced apartment complex, all managed by InterContinental Hotels Group. In July 2009, Intercontinental took over management of the Al Badia Golf Course. Future developments include the 350-room W Hotel Dubai and the 400-room Four Seasons Hotel Dubai, but construction of both hotels was put on hold in January 2009 due to the Global financial crisis of 2008–2009.[3]
The Festival Waterfront Centre, is a retail power centre which includes IKEA, HyperPanda supermarket (first hypermarket outside of Saudi Arabia[4]), Plug-ins ElectroniX and Ace Hardware (the largest outside North America).[5]
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