The groundbreaking ceremony of multi-storied Aman Tower was held at IBA City Campus, here on Friday. Dean and Director IBA, Dr Ishrat Hussain on the occasion said that the multi-storied Aman Tower is one of the several ongoing projects that are part of IBA futuristic physical expansion and infrastructure development programme.
The buildings are being constructed on the financial backing of Aman Foundation, a major social sector enterprise founded by Arif Naqvi. It deals in the infrastructural development of education, healthcare and other development sectors in Karachi
The two new buildings that are the Aman Tower and Center for Entrepreneurship Development (CED) being constructed at a cost of Rs 905 million would provide state-of-the-art facilities to the academic environment, he said "With multidimensional approach IBA aspires to become one of the top 100 global business schools and top 10 regional schools in future," he added.
The briefing on the project was given by the IBA Director Projects Rehan-ul-Ambia. He said that the Aman Tower has two basements for car parking with the parking capacity of 140 cars, one ground level which would be an open lobby. It would consists of Center for Executive Education (CEE), 32 residential suites for students of CEE, four seminar halls seating 240 people, two lecture theatres with 100 persons capacity each, a dining hall with 104 seats, eight classrooms, IT & faculty floors, a 11,000 sq ft library and cafeteria.
Rehan said that the tower would accommodate 1,136 students increasing the current tally of 840 students to 1976 students. He also said the IBA plan to increase its student capacity to 3000, as further developments would be made in the main campus.
He said that it took almost a year to get the approval for the 14-storey building by the Karachi Cantonment Board (KCB). He said that we have completed the user need surveys, while we wait for the structure design, which would be given on 8th April. He said that the project would be managed by Helcro a company of international repute, they were appointed by the Aman Foundation themselves, he said.
The director projects said that the construction work of the CED building is well underway. He further said that the Aman Tower would be completed within 30 months. Waqar Hassan Siddiqui, who was the chief guest on the occasion, said that almost 100 ambulances are running in Karachi under the Aman Foundation, he said that they plan to bring further 150 to 200 ambulances in the city. He also informed about the vocational training programme for people trying to settle down or work abroad is being carried where they were trained to cope with the challenges of living in a foreign country.