Dubai: Postponements of More Than Just the Busch Entertainment Project

Busch Entertainment and its investment partner Nakheel announced in early February that their collaborative, thoroughly ambitious project in Dubai, the “Worlds of Discovery”, has been “pigeonholed” for at least another year. The planned facility consisting of four theme parks was only just presented the year before. The extent and duration of the ongoing global financial and economic crisis cannot yet be assessed and will surely play a significant role when the time comes to decide on the future of the project. But back to Nakheel: the real estate company Nakheel recently announced plans to postpone the 1,000-metre-high skyscraper in the city of Dubai for one year before then making a final decision on the project, which was presented just last October. The multi-storey “Nakheel Tower” with 200 floors was supposed to be the tallest building in the world once construction is completed. Meanwhile, it was also made known that the scheduled grand opening of the “Al Maktoum International Airport” in Dubai has definitely also had to be postponed, as the progress in construction is lagging behind the original schedule. The entire airport including the infrastructure will sprawl over 140 square kilometres and, according to plans, 120 million passengers will be processed every year here. (eap)