The beach - now we know.

Exactly a year ago I posted about a construction fence going up on Umm Suqeim beach. Here's how it was shaping up:



The media started to publicise it, there were voices raised in protest, a petition....then The Big Boss stopped the development.

But as I subsequently pointed out, dredging work continued.



Then at the end of May that seemed to stop and the island they'd been building started to disappear:



But here it is this morning:



At least now we have some some information about what's going on.

Emirates Business247 ran a story that tells us:

"Zabeel Properties, the property arm of Zabeel Investments, has started work on Porto Dubai, a luxury residential development, on a reclaimed peninsula that will feature a “tiered island” design concept for the first time in the UAE, according to a top company official.

“We have started dredging and reclamation work on the project. Villa construction will commence by year-end, while the project is expected to be completed by 2010,” Mohammed Ali Al Hashimi, Executive Chairman, Zabeel Investments said."

There's a photo with the article that's so bad I can't reproduce it here - you'll need to go to the article here and try to work out what they're showing us.

It seems to be a circular-shaped island jutting out from Umm Suqeim Fishing Port, and it's a far cry from the massive 4.5 million square feet residential/commercial/hospitality development originally planned.