1 May 2013
The $200 million Al Waha project in Tripoli has been revived after an Abu Dhabi developer agreed to form a joint venture with the Libyan Investment and Development Company.
Al Maabar announced on 17 April that it would provide half of the finance for the scheme, which combines a 20-storey hotel and apartment complex with a 23-storey office tower on the airport road in the centre of the Libyan capital.
Yousuf Al Nowais, the managing director of Al Maabar, told Gulf News: "We stopped tendering for the project shortly after the Arab Spring, but it gives me great pleasure that the $200 million project is back on track."
Abu Dhabi’s Al Maabar steps in to fund scaled-back version of Tripoli’s landmark Al Waha project (Credit: Al Maabar)
The original scheme was priced at $375 million, and was to have had a 31-storey hotel tower and a 28-storey office block. It was designed by Atkins Middle East; Ramboll was the structural engineer.
The reduced size of the scheme reflects a shortage of investment funds in the country.
Libya is enjoying a consumer boom in the wake of the overthrow of Colonel Gadaffi, and demand for construction services is high, howeverAmerican and European investors have been wary of entering the market until the political situation is clarified.
Giulio Dal Magro, chief economist of the Italian insurance group SACE, told Lebanon’s Daily Star newspaper recently that as far as risk is concerned, "Libya is category seven, the highest".
