Fantasy Island

The Marine Conservation Park and Resort was shortlisted for the Best Waterfront Development award at Cityscape 2009 in Abu Dhabi. But will this innovative, green development really be able to say it has the ocean lapping at its doorstep?

The Marine Conservation Park and Resort (MCPR) claims to be a real estate project with a difference. In fact, whether it qualifies as real estate at all, is open to debate.

The development will be based at sea, off the coast of Abu Dhabi or neighbouring Dubai. The MCPR is conceived as a 650km² marine conservation project funded through the proceeds from a 400,000m² floating mixed-use commercial structure to be incorporated inside the park.

A US $4 million (AED14.7 million), nine month feasibility study will shortly be launched that will undertake a hydrographical study of potential coastal areas, to establish the desired location, and within two and a half years, developer World Dive Centres wishes to be welcoming its first guests.

The commercial development will house a 2500 room hotel, dive centres, retail, leisure and entertainment facilities, and a marine science and research facility. Sound like another UAE fantasy project? The team behind the plans insists it’s not.

“Every step of the way we have always asked ourselves – what is the purpose of the project?” World Dive Centres corporate development manager Justin Beavis says. The midst of a financial crisis may not leap out as the best time to be securing finance for a new project, but Beavis believes the situation can be positive. “It’s slowed things down but it hasn’t hampered our business,” he says.

“The feedback that we have had from our partners is that the product we are offering is radically different. We were looking to create something that responded specifically to the dynamics of the tourism market in the UAE.” The MCPR is not “greenwash” – that is, green for marketing purposes. The marine conservation plan is the driving force, the team says. The commercial operation is a means of achieving this.

“All the technologies and all the designs have come about through a need to provide a substantial change in leisure destinations to a sustainable footing,” explains World Dive Centres CEO Mick O’Conchubair.

The commercial structure itself is based on oil platform technology. The structure will float and be tethered to the sea bed. It will be constructed onshore, and shipped the short distance to its offshore location.

One green technology that will be used is Novacem, a revolutionary cement developed at London’s Imperial College. Standard portland cement is one of the most polluting materials in the world, the manufacture of which accounts for 5% of global carbon emissions.

Novacem, on the other hand, actually absorbs carbon during the hardening process. Over its lifespan, it is not just carbon neutral – it is carbon negative.

The green ambitions of the MCPR project add up. “Eventually we would like to see the joining up of multiple conservation parks across each of the city states of the UAE. It’s about the whole of the UAE, conservation and preservation,” O’Conchubair says. In terms of construction costs, World Dive Centres hope the development will be cost effective. A cost will be determined during the feasibility study.

The team has a UK-based dive-themed leisure project making progress, that it has partnered on with contracting giant Laing O’Rourke. Project manager Davis Langdon has also played a role, as has architect Make. Beavis remains tight lipped as to the UAE project backers, as contracts are yet to be signed, but did confirm that all but one are UAE-based. So in an environment where cash is king, what does the MCPR promise that other pipeline developments cannot?

“Organisations are ready to get involved in projects that are going to carry a meaning beyond the commercial one,” says Mena managing director Arnaud Palu. “This project is coming at a time when it’s very important to define yourself as a commercially viable operation.”

The MCPR is being undertaken for the right reasons. “It’s not just some wacky idea that has been put down on a piece of paper,” Beavis assures us. All that remains is for the team to prove it.