(06) The Centaurus Hotel Islamabad

The $350 million, 7-Star Centaurus Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan will help to put this country on the map for international travellers once the project is completed around 2010.The Centaurus complex will be hosting a luxurious hotel with 350 rooms. A high rising building, The Centaurus Hotel will be the tallest of these four buildings (hotel, two residency towers and one corporate tower). This hotel will offer a huge ballroom, spectacular central atrium, limousine service, pools and spa facilities. With plenty of world class services, this hotel will be a good place for foreign tourists coming to visit one the most well-planned cities in the world.

The Centaurus is actually a combination of four soaring buildings and one shopping mall, with one seven-star hotel, two residential towers, a huge shopping mall and one separate tower for offices. All of these buildings have been incorporated into one magnificent design. The land purchased for this project was most likely the most expensive land purchase in the history of Pakistan.

The whole complex includes the 37 story 7 star hotel, two 21 story residential towers, a 25 story corporate office tower, and a 5 story shopping mall. The complex will also have a parking lot to accommodate over 2,000 vehicles. The Hotel and the complex is designed by the British architect firm WS Atkins PLC and is estimated to cost 350 million dollars. A special feature of the building is its earthquake resilience level. As Islamabad is situated in a earthquake zone the hotel is designed to withstand an earthquake of up to 9.5 magnitude.

The Centaurus 7 star hotel and building complex is built by Pak Gulf Construction (Pvt) Ltd (PGCL) of Islamabad which is a joint venture between Al Tamimi of Saudi Arabia and Sardar Builders of Pakistan. So like many other recent spectacular real estate development projects this also seems to be funded by Arab petrodollars.