Dubai’s Nakheel awards $37m contract for Dragon City hotel

Dubai developer Nakheel has awarded the Dhs136m ($37m) main contract for its second hotel at Dragon City to Al Ghurair Contracting and Engineering Works LLC.

Work on the Dhs176m ($47.9m) project, a 304-room Premier Inn, is now set to begin and is expected to be completed in 2019.

Premier Inn Dragon City is spread across 178,000 sq ft of built up area over eight floors and includes a Costa coffee shop and gym. It is the second Nakheel property to be managed by the UK three-star chain after the opening of a hotel at Ibn Battuta Mall last year.

Read: Nakheel opens first hotel at Ibn Battuta Mall

The wider Dragon City community plan comprises 4 million sq ft of retail space, a twin tower residential complex with 1,120 apartments and two hotels with 516 rooms.

The project is centred upon the Dragon Mart Mall 1 at the site with a 375,000 sq ft showroom complex adding to the existing retail space. Together with Dragon Mart Mall 2, the shopping centre already draws 40 million visitors a year.

Nakheel has Dhs3bn ($816.8m) of hospitality properties in operation or under development with construction of the Premier Inn Dragon City to begin in the second quarter alongside a second hotel at Ibn Battuta Mall.

Read: Dubai’s Nakheel awards $50m construction contract for Avani Ibn Battuta hotel

It also has a further four projects planned at Deira Islands including an 800-room resort with RIU, another 550-room resort with Centara and two other 1,000-room projects comprising four hotels and two serviced apartment complexes.

Read: Nakheel, RIU begin work on Deira Islands beachfront resort