The freehold-development Lagoon Plaza Towers, popularly known as the zigzag towers in the West Bay Lagoon area are undergoing final touches with the owners now being shown around their property.
The first tenants of the 144-metre tall twin-towers – claimed to be the largest zigzag towers in the world – were shown their apartments last week by the developer, Dar Investment & Development.
“We started the owner’s inspection in phases on Wednesday. It began with the first floor of tower A followed by the first floor in tower B and that’s how we will cover all 34 floors,” sales and marketing manager, Ra’ed Ismail told Gulf Times.
The buildings have yet to get the water and electricity supply, which is expected in March.
If and when owners, mostly from the GCC, the Middle East and Europe, move in March, they will be the first ones in Qatar to successfully obtain ownership of a freehold apartment. Houses and villas already dot the West Bay Lagoon development, built on freehold land.
Originally slated to be completed in the first quarter of 2008, after work started in 2005, the $330mn project offering studio, one, two and three-bedroom apartments ran into snags following the acute shortage of raw materials that the country faced throughout 2007 and 2008.
“The cost of the project has now risen to $1bn due to the cost escalation,” Ismail said.
In July 2008, Gulf Times was told that the massive glasswork needed for both the towers was taking too much time.
“First it was the shortage of raw material, which we faced like every one else here, and then last year at the final stages, the contractor doing the glasswork for us was not up to our expectations,” it was said.
“As you can see, both towers A and B, need tremendous amount of glass. We’ve now got two companies in Europe working on supplying the custom-made glass to us,” he added.
Spread over about 275,000mn sq m (2.96mn sq ft), the ‘dancing towers’ as others refer to them due to their wave-like character, the 749 apartments will come unfurnished to the owners, the official said.
“There are about 3.5% of the units, mostly two- and three-bedroom apartments, available now and the prices start from QR2.1 and QR3.1mn and upwards respectively.”
Prices for the units at the Lagoon Plaza have not come down since 2006. A three-bedroom apartment was priced at QR3.1mn back in July last year as well.
But what the tenants will get for that price are residences facing West Bay lagoons, proximity to the Doha Golf Club, the Diplomatic Club and beaches, while amenities include covered garage, spa, landscaped gardens, video intercom, gymnasium, beach club, lobby, security, pool, sauna, steam room, Jacuzzi, temperature-controlled swimming pool, club-house, speed lifts and others.
The official also dismissed rumours that the developer had got mired into a design-related complication and maintained that the only thing regarding a design change was the shopping mall paired with the towers.
“The whole shopping mall was given to a tenant for 30 years, who made major changes to its design. But the construction of it is moving forward smoothly and should be ready by this year-end or the beginning of 2010,” Ismail said.
http://gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=271688&version=1&template_id=36&parent_id=16
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