[Beirut, Lebanon, September 5, Monday, 2016]: Majid Al Futtaim, the leading shopping mall, retail and leisure pioneer across the Middle East and North Africa, today announced structural work is imminent on Lebanon’s groundbreaking Waterfront City Business Park – the country’s first dedicated business hub.
John Ward, Project Head,Waterfront City-Dbayeh said: “This project will transform the life/work eco-system.”
The start of structural work is imminent on Lebanon’s groundbreaking Waterfront City Business Park – the country’s first dedicated business hub, which is set to transform working environment benchmarks in the region.
The 29,000 sq. m, landscaped Business Park in Dbayeh – which is a third larger than London’s Olympic Park – will be the region’s first ‘Grade A’ business hub in terms of design, green building and office optimization. It will have 12 buildings occupying 72,000 sq. m and comprising 400 + units, strategically located between the WFC Boulevard and the Dbayeh coastal highway. Each building façade, designed 50% of glass and 50% solid to meet sustainability criteria, is individual bringing aesthetic diversity to the design.
Almost two-thirds of the secure, ‘campus style’ park will be green and open spaces in line with the acclaimed Leadership In Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification criteria, which is evaluated on water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality, and design innovation.
The Park has been designed as a lively community hub leveraging Lebanon’s Mediterranean climate allowing those working there to make the most of its waterfront and mountain backdrops and the great outdoors. It will have business related retail services and will be dotted with ground-floor cafes and restaurants while owners and tenants will also benefit from lifestyle assets in the nearby residential sector.
“This project will transform the life/work eco-system,” said John Ward, Project Head, Waterfront City. “In this – the country’s largest business hub under the shadow of Mount Lebanon – we are delivering a professionally managed, employee centric, and pedestrian-safe environment with ample walking space, ample car parking spaces, reliable internet accessibility and a host of support services including convenience stores, restaurants, cafés, relaxing green spaces and easy access to a 3,000 sqm state-of-the-art gymnasium. The Business Park has been designed with excellence in mind and to take advantage of the area’s uninterrupted natural daylight with advanced facilities to ensure low maintenance costs. Our high quality services standards will be exclusive and the gold standard among commercial development in Lebanon” he further expanded.
“Where you do business is just as important as how you do business. The wellness impact of waterfront destinations, particularly those abundant in green space, is well documented – places to relax, to enjoy leisure, to heighten concentration and focus and where inclusive, networked communities flourish and their sustainability are strongly associated with solid
resale value. The Business Park will significantly raise the bar on working environments in Lebanon and will be a watershed in the country’s development industry within just 10-15 kilometers of the capital, just a short drive from Jounieh and with easy access from the Dbayeh coastal highway. The abundance of business and residential services bring unparalleled convenience to those who choose to live and work here or in in the vicinity – walking from home to work and able to enjoy the many events we plan to stage here, including public art exhibitions”.
The Business Park is an integral part of the groundbreaking Waterfront City, which is the biggest construction project in Lebanon in the past two decades. It will have allocated parking including valet parking and a drop-off and pick-up zones and is selling at US $3,600 per sq. m. “This is a destination ideally suited for private offices as well as fully-fledged corporate bases,” added Ward.
Designed by New York’s multi-award-winning architects L.E.FT, which operates a satellite office in Beirut, the Business Park is a hybrid of a business and social community, which has made the most of open spaces between the buildings to create an active, outdoor environment.
“One example is the entrance to the parking which has been covered with stadium-style bleachers. It transforms to become a seating area for small conferences still within a Wi-Fi environment, while the roof gardens have been enhanced with seating and again, can be used as event space,” said Makram El Kadi, Principal, L.E.FT.
“Working outdoors is becoming a trend internationally and Lebanon’s climate lends itself so well to this. It allows people to work while being more at ease with their environment,” added El Kadi, whose firm is engaged in research with U.S. universities, including Yale, MIT, UPenn, Cornell and Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. “This is going to be the coolest place to work in Lebanon and is a truly unique project where work-life balance has influenced the design. For instance, we have also incorporated roof gardens in each building and nursery on the ground floor.”
The positioning of each of the 12 buildings has been set in a ‘staggered dance’ to get the best views of the parkland, La Marina Joseph Khoury and Mount Lebanon. The entire campus has pedestrian ‘streets’ between each building enhanced by landscaping. Air-conditioning throughout the buildings incorporates variable refrigerant volume, which adapts to the environment helping to reduce overheads.
“This will be a vibrant community operating from around 6am to 2 am,” said El Kadi. “We envisage people coming here not only to work, but to enjoy events and the restaurants and cafes. As such, one of the two underground parking floors, which by day will be dedicated to tenants, owners and their staff, will be opened up after working hours as an additional visitor parking facility.”
The project is the largest L.E.FT has worked on to date and Makram El Kadi believes it could be a future award-winner. “It’s a case study in diversity of purposes – business by day, leisure anytime,” he explains. El Kadi’s confidence in the project is so high he’s planning to invest in the project himself.
“Certainly I’m going to invest there. Waterfront City and the Business Park will redefine holistic communal life and work environments. There is an added advantage to investors looking to buy a whole building at the Business Park: they can have bespoke interior architecture to suit their corporate needs and those of their company”.
Waterfront City and L.E.FT are now working on an art strategy for the Business Park, which will, in part pay tribute to the country’s heritage. “The developers will create artscapes throughout the Park with works by local as well as international artists,” explained El Kadi. “This will create an inspiring and uplifting environment for those working and visiting”.
Phase I of the Business Park is due for completion in 2018 with the developers promising ‘fast track’ construction.
The Business Park is at the core of the mixed-use Waterfront City valued at 300 million USD and built by a joint venture of two of the region’s biggest development pioneers – Majid Al Futtaim and Societe Joseph G, Khoury Et Fils Holding. When complete, the city will comprise 2,000 state-of-the-art waterfront, marina and park view homes, the business park, a 65,000 sq. mm mall, the biggest in Lebanon, and four and five-star international hotels. The city is being built around the lively, 700-berth, La Marina Joseph Khoury leisure port, which is twice the size of the Monte Carlo Marina and is active with outdoors sports facilities, private club and shopping gallery on the banks of the Mediterranean. Between 6,000 -10,000 people are expected to work there.