Mesa gets licence to open hub in Dubai, Abu Dhabi next on list

Mesa, an international landscaping firm, has been granted a trade licence for a hub office in Dubai and is next looking at Abu Dhabi, according to a senior official. It has finished the landscape design for the Ferrari Experience Theme Park in Abu Dhabi and the project is in the tendering phase, he told Emirates Business.

"We are also pursuing a licence in Abu Dhabi. But Dubai will be our hub office for the Mena region and Asia," said Will Jones, Associate at Mesa.

The US-based firm is specialised in landscape architecture, planning and urban design and has a European office in Madrid, Spain.

"In the past four years, we have done more than 50 projects in the Middle East in a joint venture relationship with an American strategic partner. Now we have our own licence," said Jones.

Projects in the region include work on the Ibn Battuta expansion (now on hold) and the Yas Island, he said. "We are working on the Ferrari project in Yas Island and have finished all the design phase for the Ferrari Experience Theme Park. The project is being tendered to landscape contractors. The landscape was designed to be a checkered flag made of native materials to this area. There will be very low use of water on the irrigation side of the design."

The slowdown in the region has not deterred Mesa, he added. "We have always been interested in this area and we feel that there is a lot of opportunity in the region. We have worked on small projects here with contracts valued at $100,000 (Dh367,000) to multi-million dollar contracts. We are short-listed for substantial projects but cannot comment on them due to confidentiality issues," said Jones.

"There seems to be an excess of landscape architects. With a possibility of getting new work, we might be hiring in the future," he added.

"We have done projects, in the UAE, Oman, Egypt and India." The company plans to double the number of active projects in this area over the next 12 months. 

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