Steady progress

The Doka‑formwork is in place and rebar is ready for the next pour on one tower.

RELATED ARTICLES: In Pictures: Dubai Sport City's Rufi Twin Towers | OST Constructional wins Sports City contract | Dubai Sports City unveils twin tower structure

Rufi Twin Towers is rising out of Dubai’s Sport City. With views of picturesque golf courses and the impressive cricket stadium, the finished product can look forward to an enviable sporting outlook.

Many nearby structures are at a similar stage in development, with varied levels of progress in evidence, while the newness of some parts of the city give a clue to their very recent completion dates.

Story continues below

Advertisement

FEATURED COMMENT Please click here to comment on this article

As the name suggests the Rufi Twin Towers project involves construction of two towers comprising two basement car parking levels, a ground floor, 18 additional floors and a common roof top. When finished, it will offer apartments and amenities for around 1,200 residents.

Although the project is not moving at the hectic pace at which it started, careful management by Emirates Belbadi Contracting Company, the main contractor, is making sure the project is one of those still making steady progress.

The company, which counts a new hotel project in Al Ain and an emerging development on Reem Island among its latest awards, has finished the initial contract period for the towers, but has agreed an extension with its client, to accommodate a slow down on the job.

“We were given another year to finish this project,” said Elie Zgheib, Emirates Belbadi Contracting’s Dubai projects manager.

“The client is emphasising the concrete and the block works, then we’ll start with the fitout and the MEP. We have finalised most of the lifts, swimming pools, garbage shoots and lights, but it is up to the market how much we can accelerate the work.”

At the project’s start the two towers were progressing at the rate of eight slabs per month, but of late this has been pulled back to just one per month now. That said, the towers are just a little short of completion: Doka formwork is in place and rebar ready for the next pour on one tower, while the other has halted, waiting for final design work on the sky bridge that will link the two towers at their top.

The slow down was by mutual agreement between client and contractor, the two working to help each other out, but there’s more to it than simply reducing the amount of work done each day.

“You have to reorganise all of your team,” said Zgheib. “Before, I had MEP coordinators, construction managers, engineers and around 400 labourers in two teams on each tower – now I have reduced everything
by half.”