Dubai - Mubasher: UAE-based facilities management company Farnek on Tuesday announced the commencement of its new AED 150 million ($40.8 million) staff accommodation in Dubai Investments Park in Dubai South.

Spanning over 100,000 square feet, the new facility will accommodate about 5,000 Farnek employees and will be completed by the summer of 2020, the company said in a statement.

The low-rise building will use state-of-the-art smart technology and will be the most energy, water and waste-efficient accommodation centre of its kind in the region.

The leading technology and sustainability-driven facilities management firm collaborated with an architectural team on the building design to ensure that it would operate as efficiently as possible.

“Through smart and sustainable design, [Farnek] hope[s] to save at least 20% more than a conventional staff accommodation centre, in energy and water savings. That could be worth up to AED 3 million every year,” Farnek’s CEO Markus Oberlin said.

The challenges facing the design of sustainable staff accommodation include waste and sewage management, Oberlin added, noting that the UAE-based firm was planning to decrease the volume of waste generated through a unique solution.

The 800-room smart accommodation facility will also enjoy energy-efficient features including solar panels on the roof of the building over 150 square metres, above 4,000 LED-lights, occupancy sensors, photocells, reflective glazing, roof insulation, energy recovery ventilation and energy-efficient air-conditioning.

Dubai South aims to invest AED 1 billion in developing facilities and infrastructure in the next few years.

“Having up to 5,000 technicians just minutes away from the Expo 2020 site and Dubai World Central (DWC), will certainly afford us a competitive edge, in the short and longer term,” Oberlin noted.