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The Dubai government has spent years preparing for the long-suffering World Expo-2020. When creating the infrastructure and organizing the event, the city had to face many obstacles, including the postponement of the exhibition for a whole year, which eventually led to the holding of Expo-2020 in 2021.
The event ended on March 31, 2022 and was an absolute success, but the amount of money spent dictated the need to find a new use for the created areas, roads, leisure facilities and other objects necessary for such an event.
The final decision was the conversion of the exhibition venue, District 2020, into a completely new, fully pedestrian area of the emirate — Expo City. Six months were allotted to prepare for the re-opening of the world Exhibition site, and in October 2022 the doors of the district will open again for international visitors: tourists, future expats, business representatives and investors.
Among the latter, an important issue in making an investment decision is the study of potential demand. Who and why will move to a new area? Some parts of the new district are already open to visitors and their overview makes it clear what to expect in October, when all parts of Expo City will resume their activities.
Structurally, ExpoCity is still an exclusively pedestrian area, no traffic should be expected from it. At the moment, the Alif and Terra pavilions are already open, many exhibits from the exhibition have been left in place and tours are open for everyone. The entrance fee to the pavilions is $14.
Alif is located in the Mobility District and provides exactly the same thing that visitors could see during the Expo. A lot of exhibition facilities demonstrating innovative technologies and developments from all over the Arab region and, especially, the Arab Emirates. It is interesting in many ways as a museum, since in the pavilion you can find examples of Arab culture from the ninth century AD to the present.
The same goes for the Terra Pavilion — visitors will get exactly the same experience that they could get during the exhibition. Terra is located in the Sustainability District and in its center, there is an oval building with an area of 130 square meters. There are «octopus-like» solar panel structures installed around it — there are 18 such structures in total and they consist of 4,912 panels.
There are places left for food courts, many of them are already working and provide a wide range of diverse cuisines of the world. There are many bike paths, about 10 kilometers, running tracks for 5 kilometers and many walking trails, including for strollers with children. A lot of green areas, picnic meadows, and parks were cleaned and re-equipped. There are about 45,000 square meters of such territories in total.
In general, the Expo site has not undergone major changes. This is still the same area it was six months ago, but now it is better designed for long-term living. It will be popular with tourists, but only time will tell how he will show himself in the business environment, which is a big calculation.
