| Kippreport.com

Yas Mall: We are building it. We promise!

June 19, 2011 2:22 by Eva Fernandes

This week good ol’ Aldar let us all know that the wonderful Yas Mall we’ve all heard too much about is still happening.

Nobody would have known it was going ahead at all, what with a series of unfortunate events that seem to have surrounded the structure.  For one thing the mall was initially supposed to be home to 300,000 square meters of retail space. That impressive figure was cut back to 250,000 square meters. And last thing we heard was that the retail space was cut down further to 235,000 square meters in March. Yeesh, miniscule by UAE standards, eh?

The plan for the mall emerged late 2008, when everything made financial sense and property developers were shinny happy people having fun. But as the doom and gloom began to set in, the Yas Mall opening was pushed back to 2012; and just this year we found out the mall opening wasn’t looking likely anytime before 2013.

So it’s much smaller in size and is taking a longer time to launch. Hmm…

And though our buddies at Aldar are quick to say “Since January, construction contract bids have been received, with a contract award scheduled for mid-June 2011″ we are still yet to see a contract being awarded to anyone…just saying.

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