The construction of the intricate road network to Mirdif City Centre, a new regional mall, is on track to meet the March 2010 opening of the retail and leisure development, a top official of the mall said.

“The sheer logistics of creating such a network are mind boggling,” said Yousif Al Ali, vice president of Mirdif City Centre.

“We have ensured that the mall can be easily accessed from all directions and the design and construction work that it entails is quite astounding,” he added.

Senior managers from Majid Al Futtaim Properties, developer of Mirdif City Centre, described the road infrastructure construction as one of the most superior designed around a shopping mall in the region.

The foundations and pillars for the three-lane bridge network have already been laid with the structures of two entry bridges connecting to the mall now complete, a statement said.

On completion of the infrastructure, 38,000 cubic metres of excavation will be undertaken, 15,000 cubic metres of concrete poured, 3,500 tonnes of steel reinforcement built and 75,000 square metres of roads paved.

For the convenience of mall customers, the road network will have two elevated entrances – a 350 metre long, three-lane entry bridge for traffic coming from Rashidiya and the northbound Emirates Road and a single-lane, 175 metre long elevated entry bridge for traffic coming from the east along Tripoli Street.

Visitors arriving from Sharjah and Airport Road will enter at ground level via the Al Khawaneej Junction of the Emirates Road.

There will also be a 350 metre elevated bridge from the first floor of the mall’s car park for traffic heading south to easily exit onto the Emirates Road to Business Bay.

“Mirdif City Centre is a perfect example of what we’ve done so very well in our past developments.  We have combined every detail of our past successes and applied them to this very special community project,” said Al Ali.

“The infrastructure being built is based on a comprehensive traffic impact study which is an essential RTA requirement for work of this magnitude,” he explained.

“This study went into great detail with regard to projected traffic flows using complex computer generated models with the input of carefully collated data representing the present traffic situation,” Al Ali concluded.

With 430 outlets, a dynamic leisure component and diverse facilities for the community, Mirdif City Centre is the largest retail and leisure development to open in Dubai in 2010, the statement said. – TradeArabia News Service