Dubai’s Nakheel awards $105m contract for RIU resort

Dubai developer Nakheel and Spain’s RIU Hotels and Resorts have awarded a Dhs385m ($104.8m) construction contract for their upcoming beachfront resort and water park on Deira islands.

The project, comprising an 800-room mid-scale beachfront resort and the water park, is scheduled for delivery in 2019, according to the announcement.

The Dubai unit of Saudi Arabia’s Bin Ladin Contracting Group was selected out of the 10 bids placed.

Nakheel had previously indicated the lowest bid for the project stood at Dhs363m ($98.8m) in a September announcement where it also said the delivery date had been pushed back from the fourth quarter of 2019 to 2020.

The new update appears to indicate delivery of the $182.4m project is back on schedule.

Nakheel has awarded almost Dhs8bn ($2.1bn) of contracts across Deira Islands, a 15.3sqkm Dubai development that will eventually be home to 250,000 people across 16 residential towers.

Other facilities include additional hotels, a mall, night souq and other retail, restaurant and recreation space.

Read: Nakheel assesses construction bids for RIU resort at Deira Islands

Nakheel said the RIU resort joint venture, marking the hotel companies first Middle East hotel, would be one of the biggest in Dubai in terms of room numbers.

The developer has a further 15 projects as part of a Dhs5bn ($1.36bn) hospitality expansion programme encompassing 6,000 rooms.