The clock is counting down to find a new home for the world’s tallest stained glass mural before the demolition crews arrive in Bur Dubai.

The company behind the redevelopment of the Ramada Bur Dubai site said it is yet to find any takers for the world’s tallest stained glass mural, which is the centrepiece of one of the city’s oldest hotels.

It is 41.14 metres high and 9 metres wide.

Demolition work is due to start in weeks to make way for a Dh500 million mixed-use development.

“The new hotel can’t be designed around it,” said Abdellah Essonni, the chief executive of Abjar Hotels International, a unit of Dubai-based conglomerate Almulla Group, which owns the hotel.

The 33-year-old property will close on August 30, with demolition expected to start in Octo­ber.

The replacement project with a five-star, 180-room hotel, 120 rental residences, and an 8,000 square metre mall with a supermarket is expected to open in the first half of 2019.

The operator of the new hotel is yet to be decided, but it would be a franchise under an international brand, said Mr Essonni.

British architecture firm RMJM, which designed Dubai International Financial Centre, Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre and Capital Gate in Abu Dhabi, would design the new hotel on Mankhool Road.

The current 174-room, four-star hotel employs 170 people, with some of them working there since the hotel’s inception.

“We are trying to absorb most of the employees within the group’s other hotels,” Mr Essonni said.

“Some of the employees want to go back home.” Abjar Group owns nine ­hotels, all in Dubai, including Ritz- Carlton Dubai, Sheraton Dubai Creek Hotel and Resorts, and its latest Ramada Jumeirah on Mina Road, which it opened in 2011.

The group would start construction of a 250-room Staybridge Suites for long-stay guests and a 360-room Holiday Inn near Dubai World Central in the next four months. Both are expected to open in 2019.

Source: thenational.ae