After its grand opening scheduled on September 9 this year, the 818-metre skyscraper, Burj Dubai, is expected to become the tallest man-made structure in the world. The honour is currently held by the wire-assisted 628-metre KVLY-TV mast in North Dakota in the US.
"The challenging part is the logistics," admitted Mohannad Sweid, chief executive officer of Depa, which won the $600-million contract in 2006 to oversee the fit-out of nearly 1,000 residential and serviced apartments, including corridors and lift lobbies, in the Burj.
The fit-out giant is now facing problems in deploying 2,000 workers over 105 floors, coordinating with them and moving materials in the $4.1-billion tower being constructed by Emaar.
"It's nightmare that we calculated at the beginning of the project, that affects the productivity of your work," he told the 'Arabian Business'.
Confirming that Depa is on schedule to complete the decoration works of the building, Sweid said, "Actually there have been a hell lot of problems. But we are dealing with it and managing it and we will deliver on time".
"Can you imagine having 2,000 people distributed in one tower?" he said. "Then you have to take materials up and load the materials, and there are other contractors working on the site. That was the challenging part and still is challenging.
For us I think it's something we will not do again". Depa is doing the fit-out for apartments between the 12th and 117th floors on the middle tiers.
