Dlush

Dlush has unveiled its first store in Dubai.

The shopping center is called Festival Centre, and is an extraordinary shopping center that sits within the heart of a newly developed commuity called Dubai Festival City.

The $2.5 billion, 1,600-acre project developed by the Al-Futtaim Group is located on the Arabian Gulf. It will contain about 2 million square feet of retail, 19,000 residences, office and hotel space, and a marina, all of it along the northeast bank of the man-made Dubai Creek.

The heart and soul of Dubai Festival City may well be the $700 million Festival Centre, which combines traditional mall stores, big boxes and restaurants along the 2.5-mile waterfront.

Dlush resides on the second level of this Centre strategically placed at the entrance to the food court and proximate to the entertainment complex which houses a state of the art theatre and and play zone for kids.

Open-air entertainment will be an important part of the project too. Four waterfront pavilions will offer 100 shops and kiosks in four themes: Celebrate Food, Kid’s Town, Maritime Experience and Trade Routes. Canal Walk, connecting to the waterfront promenade, will contain 40 waterside cafés and restaurants. Visitors can even get to the shops and cafés by water taxi.

The InterContinental Hotel, with 370 rooms, 80 executive apartments, and retail of its own, is nearby and the Four Seasons will open a 250-room hotel and spa within a mile of the site.

In time, about 77,000 people will be living and working at Dubai Festival City. To accommodate families, many of whom will be expatriates, Al-Futtaim is building school facilities, and those are scheduled to open this year.

Dubai’s population, now 1.2 million, is growing at about 8 percent annually, with GDP per capita averaging about $19,000. The economy is booming. Business travel and vacationers have been growing at 15 percent per annum and the five-star hotels are jammed.

Dubai’s rulers have been carefully promoting the city as a beach resort to most of the Middle East, as well as Africa, Europe and India. The city could get as many as 10 million visitors a year by 2010. Dubai Festival City is located just over a mile from Dubai International Airport, which is being expanded rapidly to accommodate travelers from around the globe.

Dubai Festival City is the largest privately funded, mixed-use waterfront development in the Middle East.