Doha Festival City in Qatar

Phase one of the 6 Billion QAR ($1.6bn) Doha Festival City began in October 2011 as a result of Qatar’s successful bid to host the FIFA World Cup 2022 tournament. On completion of this phase Qatar successfully opened its doors to its first 32,000+sq.m IKEA store in March 2013.

Phase two began on April 23rd 2013, with officials setting a finishing date of 2016. When completed Doha Festival City will be open the doors to Qatar's largest ever mall. The project aims to be the largest and most iconic shopping and entertainment experience in Doha. Schemes such as Doha Festival City will go some way to helping attract more construction expats who currently favour Dubai due to there being more entertaining things to do.

Doha Festival City will boast a variety of attractions in addition to Qatar’s largest shopping mall. These will include automotive show rooms, a hotel, convention centre and various leisure facilities designed to make the development perfect for a full day out. 

The project will be 433,847sq.m in total and will have 250,000sq.m of leasable commercial space upon completion. There will be an array of carefully balanced local and international shops including more than 85 restaurants and cafes. Some of the largest international names will also be in the mall including IKEA, Toys R Us, Marks & Spencer’s and Intersport.

The mall will be located on the main Al Shamal Road only a 20 minute drive from Doha’s International Airport and will have 8,500 car parking spaces including a vehicle management system which is designed to make shoppers trips even easier. There will also be a 5 star hotel with 460 rooms including a rooftop pool, spa and well equipped gym.  Festival City will also boast one of the largest conference centres in Qatar that comes complete with pre-function rooms, a ball room and meeting room facilities. This will be a great place for both Business and Pleasure.

The contract was awarded following the Master Plan and Traffic Impact Study. The entry and exit of the Festival City have been carefully designed to provide maximum ease of access. Doha’s Festival City is owned and has been developed by Bawabat Al-Shamal Real Estate Company W.L.L. (BASREC). This will be the 3rd Festival City development to be built in the MENA region with Dubai and Cairo both having similar developments.

The Festival City project is just another of the many large scale developments currently underway in Doha in an attempt to transform the country into a desirable location for locals, expatriates and tourists.

We are seeing a huge increase in work in Qatar and are always looking to speak with good, experienced construction professionals serious about getting involved in projects such as Doha Festival City and others in Qatar.

Daniel Newham & Stuart Hackett
Maxim Recruitment