Jordan-based developer The Business Park Company has awarded a key contract to Faris & Faris Architects to design a new business hotel in the King Hussein Business Park (KHBP) Development Area in Amman, Jordan.

This comes following the announcement of Faris & Faris Architects, represented by its founders Faris Zarou and  Faris Abdulrahman (both engineers) as the winner of a design contest organised by Business Park Company, the master developer of KHBP.

All the leading Jordanian architects and engineering consulting firms took part in the architectural design competition.

In the contest, the companies were asked to propose architectural designs and creative engineering solutions to rehabilitate one of the business park’s buildings and transform it into a four-star business hotel.

This competition builds on the business park’s current success reaching 100 per cent occupancy, and comes as part of its plans to enhance and enrich the quality services provided to its business community, through introduction of new investment opportunities in the tourism and hospitality sector.

KHBP hosted the design competition with the help of DG Jones & Partners (ME) Jordan, which acted on behalf of the Business Park Company as the owner representative and consultant for the formulation and preparation of the design compeition.

KHBP chief executive Soud H Soror said organising such a design competition stems from the management's belief in the talent of the Jordanian architects and their capabilities to utulise their creativity to achieve distinguished architectural accomplishments.

He also praised the efforts demonstrated by the participants and the creative architertural and engineering solutions put forward, noting that the level of contribution and professionalism presented confirms that the architecture and engineering work in Jordan has taken great steps in the path of creativity and excellence in Jordan and the region.

On the winning design, Soror said KHBP was pleased with the one submitted by Faris & Faris Architects and it looked forward to working with them to take the design from concept level to project execution, and to attract investors and developers to invest in the development of the buseinss hotel.

The management of the business park, he stated, is in the final stages of completing the strategic conceptual masterplan for Business Park Development Area, which will spread over more than 1.4 million sq m.

The facility will include mixed-use development including commercial, health, hospitality, retail, entertainment and residential.

On the win, Faris said: "Winning the competition for the rehabilitation of one of the business park’s existing buildings and transforming it into a hotel, left within us a profound sense of gratitude.'

"We are indeed proud of having been selected to participate in this prestigious architectural competition, which revitalised the competitive spirit among the invited architectural firms," he added.

According to the developer, the main challenge of this project lies in transforming the existing building into a hotel, by changing the current use and increasing its area, in order to accommodate the new program and area requirements.

The business park offers a mixed-use class-A office space that’s ready to host local, regional, international companies and start-ups, integrated with a convention center, disaster recovery center, commercial and retail outlets.

In addition to its strategic location, the project’s importance lies in satisfying and complementing the needs of the King Hussein Business Park by designing a hotel that will serve the Park’s users, guests, businessmen and investors specifically as well as contributing to the Jordanian hospitality and hotel sector in general, he added.-TradeArabia News Service