Canadian proposes to build $5B ‘moon’ atop Dubai tower
Replica will house 4,000-room hotel, arena and a ‘lunar colony’
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRAT E S Who says you cannot reach for the moon? A proposed $5-billion (U.S.) real estate project wants to take skyscraper-studded Dubai to new heights — by bringing a symbol of the heavens down to Earth.
Canadian entrepreneur Michael Henderson envisions building a 274-metre replica of the moon atop a 30-metre building in Dubai, already home to the world’s tallest building and other architectural wonders.
Henderson’s project, dubbed MOON, may sound out of this world, but it could easily fit in this futuristic city-state. Dubai already has a red-hot real estate market, fuelled by the wealthy who fled restrictions imposed in their home countries during the coronavirus pandemic and Russians seeking refuge amid the war on Ukraine.
And even though a previous booms-and-bust cycle saw many grand projects collapse, Henderson and others suggest his vision, funded by Moon World Resorts Inc., where he is the co-founder, might not be that far-fetched.
“We have the biggest ‘brand’ in the world,” Henderson told The Associated Press, alluding that the moon itself — the heavenly body — was his brand. “Eight billion people know our brand, and we haven’t even started yet.”
The project Henderson proposes includes a destination resort inside the spherical structure, complete with a 4,000-room hotel, an arena capable of hosting 10,000 people and a “lunar colony” that would give guests the sensation of actually walking on the moon.
The MOON would sit on a pedestal-like circular building beneath it and would glow at night. Henderson discussed the project at the Arabian Travel Market earlier in May in Dubai.
Already, artist renderings commissioned by Moon World Resorts have played with the location for his MOON — including at the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building at a height of 828 metres.
Others have placed it at the Dubai Pearl, a long-dormant project now being destroyed near the manmade Palm Jumeirah archipelago, and on its unfinished sister, the Palm Jebel Ali.