CONSTRUCTION has begun on a new Dh700 million ($191 million) headquarters for the Emirates Group, with completion scheduled for the summer of 2006.
Staff will move in progressively over the next year.
The group’s new central office will be located on Airport Road, opposite the present Emirates Engineering Centre, and connected to Dubai International Airport via a tunnel. Its construction will be entirely self-financed by Emirates. The ground has barely been broken but what is known of the new building that will house one of the world’s fastest-growing airlines, already is turning it into an object of intense curiosity as well as an eagerly awaited architectural concept, a statement said.
The main design objective of the new Emirates central office was to offer an even more productive environment to staff and be efficient to visitors. At 200 metres from end to end, the curved facade of the new building will be more than twice as long as the current headquarters and 100 m across at its thickest point – again more than twice the width of the existing central office. It will have two basement levels, ground floor and nine upper floors, providing 700,000 sq ft of net office space.