Site visit: Deerfields Town Square

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Where the dust and blue sky meet on the right side of the road into Abu Dhabi from Dubai, big red letters stand out displaying ‘Deerfields Town Square’.

It has been a statement of intent for the new developer of the same name whose flagship project has been an active, complex construction site for the last two years and aims for full delivery in a little over one year.

The mixed-use project is a shopping mall in the Bahiya district outside the capital, an area under-serviced for retail outlets as well as cafes, restaurants and a major supermarket.

The rectangular mall will have a built-up area of 22ha, with a central causeway of shops with a podium in the centre flanked by two large ‘anchors’ each end – extra large individual spaces for large-scale clients, one of whom is Carrefour, the supermarket chain, which will occupy a space of 3ha.

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“In May 2008, we did some market research on the local area, and found that people would either drive 45 minutes to Ibn Battuta mall [in Dubai] for their shopping, or to Abu Dhabi, which takes an hour. There is nothing here like this at the moment,” says Nancy Nese Ozbek, senior leasing manager at Deerfields Town Square.

It is the first project to be developed by Deerfields since its formation by Mubarak and Brothers Property and Financial Investments (MBI), an investment company with interests from real estate to industry, through its new company Deerfields.

The project was conceived in 2008, and MBI hired Colliers International to assess market demand and the right balance of more than 200 retailers, as well as negotiate with its tenants.

The main entrance facing Sheikh Rashid bin Zayed Al Maktoum Highway will feature a car park and resemble the façade of a typical mall, but the back will feature extensive landscaping as a place for children to play and shoppers to sit outside of the ground and first floor restaurants and cafes.

Construction began in July 2009, following the completion of the design by RMJM, the lead consultant, and the appointment of National Dewatering & Drainage Services to tackle the excavation for what will eventually be a total built-up area of 22.8ha.

Rami Dargouth, chief engineer at Deerfields, says that the construction of the project is in different phases, and the contracts for construction are in specific packages.

“National Dewatering & Drainage Services was appointed for the excavation and enabling work, and Thinet Emirates was awarded the package to construct the raft and basement slab.”