Construction Sentiments

In terms of construction, how quickly can you get things off the ground in Lebanon? Well, it depends who you ask:

London-based practice Alex Cochrane Architects has won provisional planning consent for a £1.8 million ($3.1 million) private housing scheme in the Achrafieh district of Beirut in Lebanon.
“One thing that is great about Beirut is that things happen a lot quicker,” Cochrane said.

Of course than there is the Cedar Island which, we were promised would receive the government green light before the end of the year:

Noor International Holding is unfazed about finding itself in similar situation [as Dubai's Nakheel] as it waits for Lebanese government approval for Cedar Island, where luxury homes, hotels and shopping centres like those on Nakheel’s Palm Jumeirah Island will be built.
Alraai said government approval could come in the next “five to seven months”.

Check out these great posts:

• From “Little Beirut” to “Little Dubai”
• The Palm is Going to Get You
• Noor at the End of the Tunnel

Mohammed’s Island

The brainchild behind the Lebanon Cedar Island says everything is full steam ahead:

The massive chunk of dredged seabed or transported earth — converted into an $8 billion paradise with luxury villas, apartments, shops, restaurants, white-sand beaches, parks, schools and hospitals — would nurture national pride, says Saleh, chairman of Noor International Holding.

Mohammed is preaching the “build it and they will come” philosophy where because its there, people will want it; which is exactly the same philosophy that built/damaged Dubai. Oh damn, they’ve made the comparison before I could:

It’s the kind of splashy megaproject that gave Arab boomtown Dubai its outsized profile but left it drowning in debt.

But wait, we are already drowning in debt, so what’s the harm in a little more?

Update – April 27, 2009: Beirut’s Cedar Island delayed | Source

Check out these great posts:

• The Palm is Going to Get You
• Noor at the End of the Tunnel
• Dreading the Dredge

From “Little Beirut” to “Little Dubai”

Did you know that Portland (Oregon, USA, I assume) used to be called “Little Beirut”?

George Bush Sr.’s staff called Portland “Little Beirut” in the early 1990s.  Now some say Portland is on the way to becoming “Little Dubai”  (a wildly overdeveloped Middle Eastern nation).

Well so is Beirut! Dubai built/is building Palm Islands and we are going to build a Cedar Island. And our Island will be the largest so there. Eat your hearts Dubai and Portland!

Check out these great posts:

• Construction Sentiments
• The Palm is Going to Get You
• Noor at the End of the Tunnel

Noor at the End of the Tunnel

Zawya takes a look at Noor International’s Cedar Island, focusing on the environmental hurdles that the company is facing, and will face. Interestingly, cracks are showing in Noor’s original press release.

Originally, the company reported that government approval process should be complete in two to three months. Now they are saying:

Official responses should come from the Ministry of Works, the Civil Regulatory Administration, the prime minister, the parliament and the president of the Lebanese Republic. “We expect the process to take around six months or one year at the most,” says Saleh.

I see we’ve changed the approval timeline from 90 days tops to 6 months plus or minus another 6 months.

And then came the all important question, how exactly is this going to be built? The answers were quite interesting:

Although the method by which the island would be constructed remains undetermined, Saleh explains that most probably the cedar trunk will be constructed by land reclamation, while the branches will be floating.

…

Experts claim that a floating island is a bad idea, not because of the construction process, but due to the costly maintenance the island will require. Adel Monsef, project manager at Archirodon, a leading international construction group, explains that, “a floating structure, whatever it is, needs maintenance every year or maximum every two years. In this case, a dry dock has to be built next to the island, which would be very costly. We are on the Mediterranean and we have rough seas, so there will have to be [lots of] maintenance, they are already facing some difficulties in the Palm,” which experiences mild seas compared to what the Cedar would face, Monsef adds.

I’ve been saying this privately to everyone who asked for my opinion on this project (or who told me that they approved of it and I wanted to change their minds). Building this thing on the shores of the rough seas of the Mediterranean is completely different than the calm seas of the Arabian Gulf.

To give Noor credit, they do concede that dredging the sea negatively affects the environment and have proposed an idea:

For the construction of the Cedar’s trunk, Saleh says the company has found a way to enable its creation without using sea dredging or quarrying mountains. “I heard that there is a license being issued for constructing a tunnel in the mountain leading to Shtoura [in the Bekaa valley], which would reduce the travelling time from more than an hour to 25 minutes. The idea is to use the rocks that will be taken out of the mountain to construct the island.” Saleh did not specify to whom the license is being issued, but he added that if the tunnel project is not already online, Noor International will propose and execute the idea itself. “One tunnel might not be enough, it is a plus or minus, but here we are trying to find ways to develop our project without hurting the environment. Instead of damaging the sea or the mountains, a point in which environmentalists are 100 percent right, we are developing new infrastructure,” he notes.

Though I am not to keen on blowing holes through mountains and it seems Saleh is saying that even if we don’t need a tunnel through a mountain, we’ll still make one because we need the stones. So not only is Noor going to float homes on the Mediterranean, but they are going to also turn our mountains into Swiss cheese.

Check out these great posts:

• The Palm is Going to Get You
• Dreading the Dredge
• Mohammed’s Island

Dreading the Dredge

The Middle East Economic Digest (MEED) magazine has reported that a number of companies have submitted their intention to handle the dredging work for the Lebanon Cedar Island project off the Lebanese coast:

Beirut-based developer Noor Holding has prequalified up to eight international dredging contractors to carry out the first phase of construction on its Cedar island project, pending approval from the government.

Among the large dredging firms, Belgium’s Jan de Nul and Van Oord of the Netherlands are known to have expressed interest in the project.

A company representative also expects the Lebanese government to approve the plans within three months (you’d think a Lebanese company would know better than to expect a government decision so quickly). Interesting though, the location of this monsterousity has yet to be finalized. Its either 14km south of Beirut Airport or a further 6 km south.

Check out these great posts:

• The Palm is Going to Get You
• Noor at the End of the Tunnel
• Mohammed’s Island