Dubai’s ruler unveiled plans to construct Mall of World yesterday; a Mall that can be best described as a city in its own that has been designed for hospitality and retail development for the Expo 2020 in Dubai. It is supposed to be constructed alongside the Mega convention center and the final design is expected to be released by the design board soon enough. If you want to be more specific, it will be located on the Shaikh Zayed Road and shall be managed by Dubai Holding. The construction, as expected, will be phased and the cost of the project has not yet been revealed. However, what we do know is that it will have 100 hotels within itself while covering a staggering area of 8 million sq. ft. and is the world’s first ‘temperature controlled pedestrian city’ that too with a 48 million sq. ft. spread. This will be achieved by making use of a glass dome enclosure. According to the working that has been done, once complete, the Mall of World will cater to 180 million visitors per year. His Highness, Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice-President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, at the launching of this project said; ‘This project complements our plans to transform Dubai into a cultural, tourist and economic hub for the 2 billion people living in the region around us; and we are determined to achieve our vision. We are confident of our economy’s strength, optimistic about our country’s future and we continue to broaden our vision. We are confident of our economy’s strength, optimistic about our country’s future and we continue to broaden our vision.’ If this all wasn’t enough, the Mall of World will also host the largest indoor theme park the world has ever seen. It will be constructed as a retail street network where it will stretch a little more than 7 kilometers. The project Mall of World hopes to combine two entities; shopping and leisure living. Owing to this approach, there will be 100 hotels with a total of 20,000 rooms. Shaikh Mohammad says; ‘Our ambitions are higher than having seasonal tourism – tourism is key driver of our economy and we aim to make the UAE an attractive destination all-year long. This is why we will start working on providing pleasant temperature-controlled environments during the summer months.’ Other highlights include a 3 million sq. ft. worth space reserved for ‘Wellness District’ that will provide the top-notch medical care. A ‘Dubai Cultural District’ is also in consideration along with the ‘Celebration Walk’. Mohammad Abdullah Al Gergawi, Chairman of Dubai Holding, said; ‘We are confident of our economy’s strength, optimistic about our country’s future and we continue to broaden our vision. We are confident of our economy’s strength, optimistic about our country’s future and we continue to broaden our vision.’ We’ve got our fingers crossed for the time when Dubai will unveil this super amazing wonder of a mall and we shall see just how good it is!