The Saudi-Egyptian Touristic Development Company, owner of the Grand Tower hotel overlooking the Nile, will present a traffic study for its new project to the Cairo governorate this month, according to a company official.
The company will receive the traffic study from the office in charge of its implementation during the first half of June, the official said, expecting the study to be approved and construction work to begin at the start of 2016.
“The office of former prime minister Essam Sharaf is the one assigned to prepare the traffic study for the new project to be constructed in the place of the old Meridien,” said the official.
The Board of Directors held a meeting last Saturday to discuss the traffic study and present it to the Cairo governorate, as well as choose the project’s consultant.
The company assigned to the project’s consultations, composed of three towers with a height of 167 metres in the place of the old hotel, to the Hussein Sabbour Consultant Bureau.
At the end of May, Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb requested that the Tourism Minister and the Cairo governorate hold a meeting with the company to discuss obstacles they may face in the project’s implementation.
Investments expected to be injected into the project exceed EGP 3.5bn, through financing from Gulf banks, and 50% self-financing, according to the official.
Company officials met with the Minister of Tourism in the past few days in order to present the development plan to the Tourism Ministry, where the three towers of 12 floors will be built, in addition to a shopping mall.
According to the official, the towers, set to replace the old Meridien Hotel, will include hotel apartments, a step towards encouraging visitors to stay in Cairo as the capital of the Arab world.
The official said they are working on establishing real estate facilities, comparable to those located in Dubai. He mentioned that this is not their last project in Egypt, with another project called “Sheraton Hurghada”. Issues regarding the project were settled in March with the Red Sea governorate.
The Ministry of Tourism aims to double hotel capacity in Cairo, which currently stands at 30,000 rooms. The official added that, thanks to the project’s huge investments and its international funds, the Tourism Ministry expressed its support to it.
The official concluded that the purchase contracts do not consider the Meridien as an antique building which should not be taken down. Moreover, the Grand Nile Tower is designed to include 1,000 rooms while the old Meridian only had 285 rooms.
