January 2028

As part of its continuing bid to expand its tourism industry, Dubai is proud to announce the completion of the City of Arabia real estate project. First proposed as part of the now-defunct Dubailand theme park project, City of Arabia is one of the few sub-projects that managed to survive the financial crisis of 2008/9--though it did undergo substantial delays and a revamping of its vision in the interim. Originally intended to serve as the "nerve center" of the sprawling Dubailand project, playing host to the business and administrative centers of the theme park and the accompanying retail properties, City of Arabia was redesigned to be a self-contained retail, residential, commercial, and entertainment destination.

City of Arabia has existed in various states of completion since the early 2000s, though the first major attraction was IMG Worlds of Adventure. Opened in 2016, IMG Worlds of Adventure is the world's largest temperature controlled indoor amusement park, covering more than 1.5 million square feet and with a daily capacity of ~20,000 persons. IMG Worlds of Adventure boasts five "epic zones"--a Marvel themed zone, a Cartoon Network themed zone, a Dinosaur Adventure zone, a twelve screen cinema, and a "welcoming zone."

Since then, City of Arabia has grown substantially, with over 32,800 residents and a total of 8,200 residential properties. The community is designed to minimize the use of cars, with most transportation handled by the area's own monorail system. This monorail connects to Dubai Metro's Gold Line, which will be fully opened in 2030, but for now, only provides southwest bound service towards the Pink Line, where riders can transfer over to move to the red purplre or blue lines.

Several new entertainment and retail attractions have been added as well. The first, IMG Worlds of Legends, is adjacent to IMG Worlds of Adventure. Clocking in at 2 million square feet, the new building has usurped its predecessor as the world's largest temperature controlled indoor amusement park. Worlds of Legends includes nine themed areas, including an entrance area (think like the town at the entrance to Magic Kingdom), a Nickelodeon Zone (featuring Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Dora the Explorer, SpongeBob SquarePants, and other characters), a Ubisoft Zone (featuring Raving Rabbids, Just Dance, and Assassin's Creed themed attractions), a Saban Brands zone (pretty much exclusively themed around Power Rangers), a Pokémon zone, a Mattel zone (featuring Hot Wheels, Barbie, Bob the Builder, Thomas & Friends, and Mega Bloks), an anime zone (featuring Toei Animation's Dragon Ball Z and One Piece, TV Tokyo's Naruto, and Attack on Titan), a Cartoon Network zone (considerably smaller than its partner in Adventure), a Legends of Arabia zone (themed off of One Thousand and One Arabian Nights), and a Lost Valley - Dinosaur Adventure themed zone (what does it sound like?). Legends will have a daily capacity of about 30,000 persons.

The other major new addition is Mall of Arabia (not to be confused with the smaller Mall of Arabia in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia). Mall of Arabia is the world's largest shopping mall in terms of net leaseable area at 10.5 million square feet (Iran Mall is technically larger at 21 million square feet, but most of that is cultural, religious, and recreational areas rather than stores, so is it really a mall?) and over 2000 stores, with brands from across the globe, intended to cater to the varied demographic groups in the country and its tourist population.