Appointment

AECOM named lead consultant on Al Dhaher first phase

By Staff Writer  |  20 August 2026

AECOM has been appointed lead consultant for infrastructure design peer review and construction supervision on the first phase of the Al Dhaher Development in Al Ain. The appointment was announced on 20 August 2026. No contract value has been published.

Al Dhaher is a citizen housing development that will comprise 2,394 villas together with schools, community facilities, retail, sports facilities, public spaces and supporting infrastructure. It sits about 15 kilometres south of Al Ain city centre, close to the border with Oman, and spans about 528 hectares. The development is to be built in three phases.

The first phase covers around 1,000 villas across 198 hectares. AECOM's scope on that phase is the design peer review and construction supervision of the infrastructure and associated works, which the company lists as infrastructure and utility networks, roads and associated infrastructure, landscaping and public realm works, utility and service buildings, community facilities, and flood mitigation and drainage infrastructure.

Adeeb Sami, Vice President for Al Ain at AECOM, said the appointment covers a development that brings together residential, community and infrastructure elements at scale, and that the infrastructure will provide the foundation for the development's long term performance. He said resilience runs through the scheme, with flood mitigation measures, drainage infrastructure, stormwater ponds and hydraulic systems built in to support the community's long term safety and reliability.

"We look forward to applying our multidisciplinary expertise, local knowledge and global best practice to help deliver infrastructure that supports the needs of the community today while contributing to Al Ain's resilience and continued growth," Sami said.

Asif Shafi, Managing Director for Civil Infrastructure and Program Management at AECOM, said: "We are proud to support our valued client on a project that will contribute to the continued development of Al Ain and provide a high-quality, sustainable environment for local families."

What the practitioner should take from this

The first point is the scope wording, because design peer review and construction supervision are two very different services placed under one appointment. A peer review is a checking function performed on somebody else's design, and it does not ordinarily carry design responsibility. Construction supervision is an inspection and administration function performed during the works. Where both sit in one appointment, the document that matters is the schedule of services, and specifically whether the peer reviewer is stated to be reviewing for compliance with a defined brief or is being asked, in substance, to approve. The distinction decides whether a later defect argument runs against the original designer, the reviewer, or both.

The second point is that a peer review appointment on a scheme of this size implies there is a separate designer of record. Anyone advising a party on this development should establish who that is, what standard their appointment holds them to, and how the reviewer's comments are dealt with contractually when the designer disagrees. Unresolved review comments are a familiar source of dispute precisely because the process for closing them out is often left to correspondence.

The third point is the phasing. Phase one is around 1,000 villas out of 2,394, so rather more than half the housing sits in later phases that have not been let. An appointment limited to phase one on a three phase development raises the ordinary continuity questions: whether the later phases are options, whether rates are held, and what happens to the design standards established in phase one if a different team takes the later work.

The fourth point is the water engineering. Flood mitigation, drainage, stormwater ponds and hydraulic systems are named specifically. On a site of 528 hectares in an arid region, the design event and the return period assumed for it are the assumptions that carry the risk, because they are set years before they are tested. Where a consultant supervises construction of infrastructure it also peer reviewed, the record of what design criteria were adopted, and on whose instruction, is worth keeping in a form that survives the appointment.

The fifth point is that no value, no programme and no main contractor have been published. The announcement is a consultancy appointment on the first phase, not a construction award, and it should not be read as evidence that the phase one works have been let.

No contract value, no duration, no construction start date and no contractor is published, and none is stated here.