DUBAI CREEK HARBOUR

The immense Dubai has not finished its sprawling development! On the road to Ras al Khor beyond the Creek, on the edge of the mangrove sanctuary, the cranes never stop dancing: a district the size, or almost, of the 14th arrondissement of Paris is rising ex nihilo from the sand. A residential district that already has its flagship monument, which will shade the Burj Khalifa: it is The Tower, a cable-stayed tower, designed by Salvator Calatrava, a famous Spanish architect, to whom we owe among other things the Lyon-Saint Exupéry station, the City of Arts and Sciences of Valencia or the Pont de l'Europe. The tower, whose central pillar should be 700 metres high, will be maintained by cables anchored in foundation blocks. It is being built slowly, watching for the tower under construction in Jeddah, which is expected to reach an altitude of one kilometre, before officially communicating the height it will reach. In the meantime, Burj Khalifa is living its last months of higher tower status before being overtaken by its little sister. Around these 550 hectares are several districts, including the Island district, which will host by 2020, a 74-storey high building with a spectacular view of the mangroves and the nearby city centre of Dubai, a huge park that should house Japanese cherry trees, a 4.5 km long promenade, pink flamingos, but also a marina, housing, and nearly 800 shops. Everything should be ready by the end of 2020, and The Tower perhaps even before that. On the other hand, there is no official confirmation of what the Calatrava Tower will house: initially, it was only supposed to be an observatory, but it is possible that in the coming months other plans will be considered. In the meantime, a beautiful palm tree alley and a sales centre await visitors every day to admire the models and the magnificent panorama that unfolds in front of the future district. A model is also visible at the entrance to Dubai Mall.