Plans Underway for Dubai’s ‘Mall of the World’- The Globe’s Largest Mall Ever
The logistics for the project may be too much to handle, which might explain a long gestation period.
It isn’t enough that Dubai boasts the world’s tallest man-made structure - in its icon Burj Khalifa. The Middle East hub now plans to house the globe’s most expansive, diverse, composite and spectacular mall as well. This super-ambitious project in the pipeline will top the nearly 100-and-counting malls that the city is already home to - cementing the city’s reputation as a Shopping Paradise.
Stretching across 4 ½ million square metres, the ‘Mall of the World’ is to be a town all on its own. This gigantic self-contained enclosure will come replete with over 700,000 square metres accommodated by shops and stores; the world’s most sprawling game park; and even a special dome that can be uncovered during the winter months. What’s more, the super mall will include climate-controlled streets and extensive entertainment zones offering every kind of amusement imaginable.
The new-age monument is expected to attract as much as 180 million tourists yearly. Just to give you the scope of this number, the whole of the UAE has a population of 9.4 million, of which 3.6 million reside in Dubai. That means that on an average daily basis, the city will be absorbing more than 500,000 outsiders! One wonders if the project owner Dubai Holdings, as well as the Dubai Administration, are biting off more than they can chew.
The magnitude of this project probably also explains why it was conceived in 2012 and construction is yet to begin. Furthermore, in 2016, the site for the mall was shifted from Mohammed bin Rashid City to just off Dubai’s main thoroughfare – Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Road. Unless distributary streets are concurrently built, the road is bound to get further congested than it already is, and how! Plus, there is no telling the collateral damage that this giant air-conditioned bubble is going to bear on the environment at large.
