PHOTOS: Cityscape offers a look into Qatar's future

Cityscape Qatar winds down at the Doha Exhibition Center tonight after offering a glimpse of things to come for the city, the country and the region.

Many of the big developers in town – Barwa, UDC, Ezdan and Al Futtaim – were touting their latest and greatest projects at the three-day conference and show.

IKEA update

Al Futtaim group, which is developing Doha Festival City and Qatar’s first IKEA, had a model of the sprawling mall on display.

A representative there confirmed to Doha News that construction of the IKEA store is slightly behind schedule, and is due to open in the beginning of 2013, rather than by the end of the year, as initially announced.

She also joked that the development, expected to be the second-largest mall in the world (after Dubai Mall), will be renamed IKEA Festival City due to the sheer number of inquiries they’ve had about the Swedish home goods store.

BARWA

Over at the Barwa booth, the company was showing off three of its big projects:

Barwa Commercial Avenue: A sprawling 1,000,000 square meter commercial & residential strip being built on Al Muntazah Road. It stretches over eight kilometers and seeks to offer everything from hotels to office space, housing, food courts, groceries, doctors, and pretty much anything else you could ever need. (It isn’t clear when it will be fully open, but office and retail space are already being leased.)

Barwa Al Baraha: Also known as Workers City, the residential development will house some 53,000 low-income laborers; the largest such project in the Gulf. Announced in 2008, the project’s first phase – a large truck park – has already been completed. But the housing phase, which has yet to go to tender, won’t be done until 2014.

Barwa City: The square kilometer residential and commercial development is just south of Commercial Avenue. Barwa City’s 6,000 apartments are currently only being offered to government and businesses, with tenants due to move in on July 1. Phase two would see it expand to include schools, a hotel and hospital.

The company also used Cityscape to announce a new project: the Lusail Golf Residential Development. The 3.7 sq. km development will have both residents and sports facilities, including an 18-hole golf course and country club.

EZDAN

At the Ezdan booth, visitors could get a glimpse of the company’s upcoming Al Gharafa Mall. The three-floor, 37,000 sq. meter shopping complex on Al Shamal Road is expected to open this September across the road from Landmark Mall. No details yet on specific retailers that will be setting up shop there.

Ezdan Al Gharafa Mall