Coastal treasures: Two island developments should help to attract tourists and investors

Two of Kuwait’s largest developments are being built on islands – one with a history of habitation that stretched back to 2000 BC and the other on a challenging landscape that has long been viewed as unsuitable for settlement. While both are significant in scale, the approach of the government to the development of each is quite distinct.

RECOVERY: Failaka Island lies 20 km off Kuwait’s coast and until the Iraq invasion of 1990 was home to about 2000 people. Mined and depopulated during the Gulf War, the island is today largely reserved for military use, but has also become increasingly popular as a domestic tourism destination served by a ferry from the mainland. Failaka has long been popular for its climate, more temperate than that of Kuwait City, with variations that allow for an array of interesting flora. It is also a favoured site for fishing, swimming, sailing and other water sports. The government has shown a willingness to redevelop the 43-sq-km island for more than a decade. By 2006 three consortia of companies, including Agility and Kuwait Finance House, had produced detailed designs for resort complexes to be built there.

While none of those plans came to fruition, the government’s determination to develop the island remains. The rehabilitation of Failaka is of particular interest in the construction sector as it is being carried out on a public-private partnership (PPP) basis; it is overseen by the Partnership Technical Bureau (PTB) established in 2008. Since that time the PTB has been acting in its capacity as an advisory body with third-party organisations to develop a business case strong enough to encourage private firms to invest. After an assessment period that included a survey of the island’s properties, repossessed buildings, farms, land with ownership claims and archaeological sites, the PTB is moving ahead with the long-anticipated development.

MOVING AHEAD: In November 2011 it appointed EC Harris, the international built asset consultancy, as lead technical advisor on the project. The UK-headquartered firm is part of a consortium led by the National Bank of Abu Dhabi that includes global and regional heavyweights such as the WSP Group, Abu Dhabi National Properties, Knight Frank, Pinsent Masons, and Asar – Al Ruwayeh & Partners.

The development of a master plan, delivery strategy and business plan is a 27-month commission expected to be concluded in early 2014. While details regarding the final design have yet to be revealed, the PTB’s aim is to transform Failaka Island into a “premier, state-of-the-art leisure and tourist destination” in which cultural locations, such as the Ikarus and Azuk temples that date back to its colonisation by the ancient Greeks, will be integrated with regular tourist and leisure facilities such as hotels and parks. The PTB plan calls for hotels suited for week-long stays and a town centre that will also act as a magnet for day visitors from the mainland.

While the Failaka Island project will be closely overseen by government bodies, most notably Kuwait Municipality and the Ministry of Public Works (MPW), the decision to seek large-scale private investment by handing it over to the PTB represents a very different strategy than that applied to the nation’s other island development project, Boubyan Island.

BOUBYAN ISLAND: The silt-rich clay of Boubyan Island makes it a challenging area for development purposes and is the principal reason for its remaining uninhabited to this day. The question of what might be done with this 850-sq-km land mass, however, has exercised the minds of government planners since the mid-1990s, and in the intervening years a large number of schemes and studies have been carried out in a bid to exploit its location.

While the proposals for Boubyan have varied over time, one element has remained almost constant: numerous sites along the island’s coastline have been identified as suitable locations for the new port Kuwait has been considering as a solution to the capacity limitations of its current seaports. “Kuwait has two major seaports at the moment, and neither is expandable. Shuwaikh Port is in the middle of the city, and therefore crowded by other developments. Shuaiba, meanwhile, is surrounded by facilities belonging to the oil industry,” Soroof Al Attebi, the director of mega-projects at the MPW, told OBG.

Boubyan’s location near the nation’s northern border with Iraq raises the possibility of creating a regional gateway capable of serving not just domestic logistical requirements but also those of southern Iraq, northern Saudi Arabia and (should the political situation allow) Iran, and this concept has therefore provided a focus for the most recent round of planning, which began in 2003.

This two-year process resulted in a number of development options centred on a commercial port capable of supporting a new trans-shipment industry in the country and act as a regional logistics hub. More master plans followed from 2006 to 2009, during which time the scale of the port increased from nine to 24 berths, with the potential to expand to 60 berths – a scheme which formed the basis of the tender for environmental impact assessment and construction of Phase 1 of the port awarded to Hyundai Engineering and Construction in 2010.

FIRST STEPS: The $1.2bn first phase of what is now known as the Mubarak Al Kabir port involves a land reclamation process and the construction of a deepwater terminal with a 1200-metre quay wall, the completion of which will allow shipping operations to begin at the facility by the end of 2017 or early 2018, according to the MPW. An initial capacity of 1.8m containers per annum will be expanded by two further phases, which will bring two more quay walls and establish Mubarak Al Kabir as a regional deepwater facility – an aim the MPW originally intended to reach by 2029 but now hopes to meet by 2021.

The MPW’s vision for Boubyan, however, extends beyond its proposed port infrastructure. After working with a French consulting firm, the ministry has formulated a master plan for the entire island encompassing a range of activities and industrial business, such as a fishing harbour that will act as centre for aquaculture based on shrimp, fish and algae, a free trade zone, a light-industrial complex, a technology park and a residential area.

CHALLENGES: In formulating its plans for Boubyan, the MPW and Kuwaiti government have had to overcome considerable challenges. The characteristics that make development of the island technically challenging – its low-lying profile, regular inundations by seawater and soft mud deposits – make it a site of some ecological importance. The sea surrounding the island exhibits high biological productivity and ecological diversity, while the northern part of the island is home to significant resident and migrant bird populations. The MPW, therefore, has ensured that the northern half and two corners of the island’s southern half, or some 60% of the Boubyan’s total area, is left untouched by development and maintained as nature reserves.

A further challenge came in the form of political opposition from neighbouring Iraq, the coastline of which lies only 11 km from Boubyan at some points. Despite the Kuwait government’s well publicised plans regarding Boubyan, the commencement of construction at the port site provoked a strong response from Iraqi parliamentarians, who thought its location was too close to the Iraqi port of Umm Qasir, and that an already crowded waterway would therefore become un-navigable.

Concerns were also raised regarding the effect of the new port on a rival Iraqi port development of the nearby Al Faw peninsula. Al Attebi has stressed, however, that the issue has been discussed and resolved. “We have met with the Iraqis, they have visited the site, and I think we have answered all their fears. Our port will have its own navigable channel to reach the deep water, and so it will not affect their ability to reach their seaports,” Al Attebi told OBG.