Bahrain’s financial landscape is all set for a dramatic change this year: Poised for a formal opening in April this year is the 53-storey iconic centrepiece of the $1.4 billion Bahrain Financial Harbour (BFH) – the Dual Towers – where fit-outs have already commenced.

Over 90 per cent of the development work on Phase I of the project known as the Financial Centre has been completed.
The Financial Centre consists of three components – Dual Towers, Financial Mall and the Harbour House. The Dual Towers will provide office and commercial space for the financial services industry while the Financial Mall is designed specifically for capital markets and will house brokerage and trading firms, quality retail outlets and cafes, as well as other leisure facilities.
Construction of the $450 million Villamar at the Harbour, which is the Phase II of the development and its residential component, will commence this month. Furthermore, the Phase III reclamation of land has also been completed.
Spread over 380,000 sq m of prime seafront property on the Manama Corniche, BFH was conceived with the dual aim of further enhancing the reputation of Bahrain as the financial hub of the region, and for addressing the key issue of congestion in the current scattered financial district of Manama that any rapidly growing economy faces.
The BFH model not just ensures its financial sector tenants with significant value through prime scenic waterfront property but also facilitates optimal business gains through its integrated cluster model and its next-generation technologically-advanced office environment.
“The financial sector is one of the most competition-intensive sectors, with Bahrain alone hosting over 365 financial sector companies. The importance of data security and confidentiality in this sector is one of the foremost criterion of risk management and also plays a key role in the decision-making process for the location of a firm’s headquarters and its key research and development (R&D) facilities,” says Stephen Rothel, chief executive officer of BFH.
BFH’s technology blueprint has been designed to incorporate the four key areas of prime importance to tenants: security, communication, building management and air-conditioning systems.
In a local context, the technology blueprint ensures that BFH leads the field of stellar developments in Bahrain, he says. The buildings are able to cater to the exhaustive needs of demanding local, regional and international businesses, boasting some of the regions most technologically advanced systems that are designed to ensure optimal security and enhance energy consumption savings. The security systems implemented are in accordance with the international financial institution requirements.
 It has also introduced the wild cooling concept for the first time in the region. This provides the buildings and the tenancies with a comfortable level of air-conditioning in the case of a national or local power failure.  Besides receiving power from governmental electric substations, the power distribution network of the project employs a highly reliable standby generator system that supports essential power requirements of the tenants and also operates the air-conditioning equipment to achieve wild cooling throughout the project.
“Designing a contemporary state-of-the-art technological blueprint for any development of the magnitude of BFH, is always a great challenge, Not only are the requirements of the financial sector companies very diverse and advanced but the technology itself is evolving at a very rapid pace. The fully converged information communication technology systems within BFH have been specifically customised to meet the requirements of our potential customers, whether local or international,” he adds.
BFH has implemented a fully integrated security system based on Internet Protocol solutions having features for local/central/remote monitoring and controlling facilities. The security system mainly comprises of three elements namely, CCTV for surveillance, access control and intercom. The access control system engages the smart card technology, programmed at various security levels whereby tenants will be allowed access to only certain pre-defined areas of the facility. Similarly, the established Visitors Management System will help control visitors movements within the building. Additionally, the entire facility is hooked up with CCTV (closed-circuit television) facilities that are centrally monitored 24 hours a day from a single control room. While this facility covers all public areas of the buildings, tenants have the additional option of requesting for this system to be extended to also cover their individual facilities.
BFH has put into operation a scalable converged ICT distribution network with all active and passive components based on Cisco solutions in the project. The ICT backbone network engages greater level of network security within BFH and BFH/tenant network from the outside world by deploying redundant fire-walls on various network layers. Multi-cast systems are converged in a common fibre-optic backbones system and connected to the central control system, which has the facility for management, accountability and monitoring of each service independently. The ICT network is designed to provide the tenant with services such as voice (IP telephony), Internet VPN, site-to-site VPN, multicast (TV broadcast), desk top video, video conferencing as well as provisions for connecting future tenants security system through CCTV and access control.
One of the key highlights of the technology blueprint of BFH is the implementation of a fully integrated building management solution that incorporates an energy management system, resulting in considerable energy saving during building operations. The energy conservation concept of the BFH provides a state-of-art technology based lighting control system, further utilises return air exhaust for air-conditioning the plant rooms and introduces variable frequency drives in the entire air and water distribution network.
Through these various innovative and cutting edge systems, BFH aims to not just be able to optimally satisfy the complex infrastructure needs of its tenants but also position itself as one of the safest and friendliest facilities in Bahrain.
The BFH development comprises of 10 projects which are further sub-divided into 28 parcels, collectively offering over 820,000 sq m of space and featuring a diversified range of office, residential, retail, leisure and dining components that will cater to all needs of the financial sector.
“With a business model and product mix such as the BFH offering, it is no surprise that in recent times it has evoked significant interest from global audiences, even being dubbed the Canary Wharf of the Middle East,” Rothel adds.
More than 35 financial sector and retail companies have committed for the uptake of space in the Dual Towers. These include large brands such as Servcorp, Gulf Finance House, Khaleeji Commercial Bank, Mena Telecom, DHL and Aramex, among others. It has further appointed internationally renowned real estate consultants Cluttons as the leasing, sales and marketing agent.
“In addition to all the development work that is progressing at a very rapid pace at BFH, we are also currently at advanced stages of negotiations with some of the largest and most well known financial institutions. Details of these deals would be made public within the next couple of months,” concludes Rothel.