Work on Oman’s $15 billion Blue City – or Al Madina Al Zarqa – is now set to go-ahead full steam following the signing of $925 million worth of financing with international investors for the first phase of the development.

In addition, Hill International, the worldwide construction-consulting firm, was also been appointed under a six-year contract to provide lender’s technical advisory and oversight services for the ambitious residential-cum-resort development.
The project the Sultanate¹s largest-ever real estate development is being spearheaded by Oman’s Al Sawadi Investment and Tourism Company (ASIT) and the Bahrain-based AAJ Holdings.
According to AAJ Holdings, the contractor – a joint venture between leading Turkish contractor Enka Insaat ve Sanayi AS (Enka) and Aktor Ate (Aktor), Greece¹s largest construction company – has been mobilizing for the project and setting up site camps and is now expected to start work on the site access roads. The joint venture was awarded the $1.9 billion main contract to launch the first phase of the project early last year.
Phase 1 is primarily a residential tourism development with leisure and retail elements, and is expected to involve the construction of over 200 villas, over 5,000 apartments, four hotels with a total of 670 hotel rooms, five individual retail areas together with two golf courses and a clubhouse, with a total gross floor area of approximately 1.7 million sq m. Construction of Phase 1, covering an area of 5.4 sq km, is scheduled to be completed in six years.
The Blue City is a mixed-use tourism, leisure, residential and commercial community to be built on a 34 sq km picturesque site framed by two wadis along the Al Sawadi seafront, located approximately 67 km from Seeb International Airport, 90 km from the centre of Muscat and 10 km from the nearest town, Barka.
It will have seven economic layers, including educational institutions, healthcare, tourism and sports facilities, set amidst the most striking landscapes in the Arabian Peninsula.
The project site has a total of 15 km of natural sand beach coastline with a generally flat topography: sand dunes to the south and a deep seawater creek to its northeast. The city will be developed over the next 15 to 20 years with a built-up area of between 20 and 30 million sq m in 10 market-determined phases.
Upon completion in 2020, the project is expected to be home to more than 250,000 permanent and visiting residents and will become a tourism and business destination of national, regional and international relevance. The total projected investment for the project is budgeted to be between $15 billion and $20 billion. Phase 1 of the project has an approximate budget of $2.1 billion.