Sino Great Wall to construct Dusit Thani apartments
A Chinese contractor, Sino Great Wall International Engineering, has signed up to construct the Dusit Thani Sri Lanka, Beachfront Balapitiya, an apartment property catering to the discerning traveller.
This property is expected to create the space for those wanting to visit the South but lack the required high end accommodation facilities, Dusit Thani Sri Lanka Director Ajit Wijesinghe said at a media briefing held in Colombo to announce the contractor that had bagged the project.
The twin tower project would commence work on March 20 this year and is scheduled to be completed in 700 days, the management stated.
It was also noted that they had already sold one tower with 14 stories that was part of the Sage I and the second stage will have 20 stories.
The first tower was shared between one-third for locals, one-third for expatriates, one-third for foreign investors from Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong and the UK.
Mr. Wijesinghe explained that this was a tourism product and believed this to be a unique opportunity to market this type of property as this was not currently available in the country.
The Balapitiya apartment resort, managed by the 5-star hotel brand Dusit International, would be completed in three stages comprising 162 apartments in stage I.
Every apartment features a large private balcony, five-star designer interiors and stunning, uninterrupted ocean views. Stages two and three include more apartments, a promenade featuring 15 international restaurants, cafes and bars, a luxury spa, sauna and gymnasium, 2500 sq metre convention centre, a roof top tennis court and a multi-faith chapel.
Mr. Wijesinghe also noted that they were targeting the MICE tourist traffic to this property and noted that the days of standalone hotels was a thing of the past.
In fact, he explained that today apartments were the expectations of travellers and said that European traffic could be generated increasingly to Sri Lanka as the destination was closer than Thailand but this was not happening since the right product was not available.