The designs for Panama City Centre in Panama City, Panama, have been unveiled by design firm WATG. The project consists of two towers that will feature a conference centre, a casino, a spa, a fitness centre with pool, food and beverage units and retail outlets. One of the towers will house a 397-room hotel with a fine-dining restaurant on top, while the other will have office space with a nightclub

The £250m Westside Shopping and Leisure Centre has opened in Bern, Switzerland. Designed by New York-based architect Daniel Libeskind, the new complex boasts 55 shops, 10 restaurants and bars, a 144-room hotel, a multiplex cinema, a fitness centre and a fun pool. Libeskind’s concept was to “create a public space with day and night facilities, a self-enclosed district offering endless amenities and services, almost like a city within a city”.

A three-year fundraising appeal to secure the future of the Watermill Theatre in Berkshire has reached its target of £3m. The campaign to save the Grade-II listed theatre in Bagnor, near Newbury, was launched in June 2005 and attracted more than 4,000 contributions from individuals, trusts, foundations and businesses, including £200,000 from Arts Council England. By January 2007, campaigners had already raised the £1.8m needed to acquire the theatre premises,

Developer Dubai Properties is building a £255m museum, dedicated to Middle Eastern modern art as the centre piece of its £8bn Cultural Village project in Dubai, UAE. The 25,000 sq m Museum of Middle East Modern Art (MOMEMA), designed by Amsterdam-based architects UN Studio, will include exhibition spaces, art galleries, leasable workshop spaces, an auditorium and an amphitheatre for live performances and international festivals. MOMEMA will also feature a 60-room

Work has commenced on the £7.6m remodelling of a large two-storey Marks & Spencer retail unit, which had been vacant for over three years, on High Road in Wembley, London. Designed by Brimelow McSweeney Architects for Dukelease Properties, the scheme will provide a leisure centre and two retail units while existing offices on upper floors will be converted into residential accommodation. The 1,345 sq m health club will be operated

The birthplace of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas has been turned into an 'experiential self-catering holiday home' following a refurbishment project. Guests staying at 5 Cwmdonkin Drive in the Uplands area of Swansea will be given the chance to experience life as it would have been in 1914, the year in which the property was first bought the property. In order to replicate conditions from nearly a century ago, the house

Tottenham Hotspur Football Club (THFC) has announced plans to move to a new 60,000-seat stadium in north London. The club has outlined the proposals as part of its Northumberland Development Project, which will also incorporate new facilities including a museum and a new base for the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation. Plans for the new stadium cover an area around 20 acres (8.1 hectares), and include the site of the current 36,000-seat

The first phase of the £8m Pier Head redevelopment project in Liverpool has opened to the public. Work started on the three-stage scheme in December 2006, which will see the area in front of the city's iconic Three Graces – the Liver, Cunard and Port of Liverpool buildings – transformed into a new public space incorporating a canal. The project, which is expected to be fully completed in Spring 2009,

A £2.68m artificial surf reef which is currently under construction at Boscombe, near Bournemouth, may not be completed by the end of the year. Poor weather has been blamed for delays to the scheme, which will create the first artificial reef in the northern hemisphere 225m (738ft) off the Dorset coast. Work started on the project at the end of August as part of the wider £9.66m Boscombe Spa Regeneration

Leeds United Football Club (LUFC) has revealed plans to redevelop its Elland Road stadium. Proposals do not involve increasing the stadium's capacity from 40,000, but will see a new 350-bedroom hotel complex being built in the south east corner of the ground and the creation of a new arcade running along the back of the East Stand. The arcade will incorporate shops, bars and restaurants, as well as the extension

Warwickshire County Cricket Club (WCCC) has unveiled detailed plans for the £30m revamp of Edgbaston cricket ground in Birmingham. The project will see the ground's capacity increase by around 4,000 with the construction of a new stand, as well as a wider redevelopment of the site. The new stand will provide improved facilities for both fans and players, including new changing rooms, bars and restaurants. Edgbaston's corporate hospitality and events

Work has started on a £1.46m refurbishment project at the Grade-II listed Battle Library in Reading. Reading Borough Council has appointed the South London company, Mansells Construction Services, to carry out the transformation of the library. A new community garden, an exhibition space for a community art gallery and a refreshment point will be created as part of the project, which has been part-funded by a grant from the Big

Tower Hamlets Borough Council has granted permission for a 170m (558ft) super-yacht hotel to be moored permanently in London's Docklands. The proposals for Thames Quay in West India Dock were put forward by the Dubai-based developer, Aquiva, and the project is now set to go before the Greater London Authority for final approval. Located adjacent to Canary Wharf, the floating hotel will feature up to 180 staterooms and suites, as

Argent, the developers leading the £2bn regeneration of London's King's Cross area, will need to use its own money to fund the next phase of the project after talks with a consortium of international banks fell through. Negotiations over the £400,000 financial package ended as conditions in the financial market deteriorated. Argent needs to start the next phase of work this month in order to finish the first buildings in

The Kewford Eagles Football Club in Staffordshire has announced details of its proposed £1.2m sports park after seven years in the planning. The club recently secured a 30-year lease for a 30-acre site next to Dudley Kingswinford Rugby Club in Wall Health, which will host the facility if plans are approved by Staffordshire County Council. The proposed facility will boast 11 football pitches, varying in size for all ages, including

The first phase of the construction of the i360 observation tower, to be located at Brighton's West Pier in south-east England, is underway. Steelwork fabrication of the tower is currently in progress at a factory in Maastricht, the Netherlands, where a total of 660 tonnes of steel plate is currently being rolled into a 3.9-metre wide tube, which will form the 158m-high core of the tower. The team building the

Just St James restaurant, which originally opened in 2000, has been refurbished by owner Peter Gladwyn. The main aim of the £500,000 refurbishment project was to raise the profile of the restaurant, which had been previously screened off behind the adjacent bar. The dining area has now been raised by 1.5m, giving it a stronger visual prsence, and allowing diners to look out onto St James’ Street below. A new

The Peak Health Club, in London’s Jumeirah Carlton Hotel, has reopened following a major refurbishment programme. Zynk Design, which carried out the revamp, was given a brief to create a light, airy, contemporary space that would match the luxury of the five star Jumeirah hotel. The gym features large, curved windows, which provide views of London’s skyline and flood the space with natural light. Walnut floors, glass lacquered timbers and

The new Kings Place arts centre, designed by architects Dixon Jones, has opened in Kings Cross, central London. The development includes a 420-seat auditorium, a 200- seat flexible space for concerts and conferences, teaching rooms, rehearsal rooms, a restaurant and office space. The building consists of a public ground-floor area on the waterfront, two lower levels featuring music and arts areas arranged around a central atrium, and seven floors of

The Leicester Square Co-ownership Group has received approval for its plans to redevelop the south-west corner of Leicester Square in London. The 22,604 sq ft (2,100sq m) site will include a luxury, 240-room hotel, a new two-screen Odeon cinema, four street-level restaurants and cafés, a rooftop restaurant and 33 luxury residential apartments. The site currently houses the existing Odeon West End cinema. Designed by architects Make, the work on the

Plans to build a new £15m passenger terminal at Portsmouth Continental Ferry Port have been approved by the city council. The port has been working on the project with consultants Halcrow, which appointed D5 architects to come up with the outline design for the new building, which will be located to the east of the existing terminal. A design and construct contract for the facility will be put to tender

Owners of the Grand Pier in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, have announced their preferred design for the redevelopment of the 104-year old attraction. Bristol-based architect, Angus Meek, was selected after a design competition for the pier, which was severely damaged by a large fire in July. Designs for the future of the Grade-II listed structure were unveiled by six architects at the start of October, before being put to public consultation. A

Plans for a waterside mixed-use development, immediately adjacent to Canary Wharf on the Isle of Dogs, London, has been granted outline planning permission by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The mixed-use project, called Wood Wharf, is a partnership between developers Ballymore Group, the urban regeneration company Canary Wharf Group and the site's owners British Waterways. GVA Grimley is the planning adviser for the development. The site is currently a

The Asia-Pacific based consultancy Horwarth HTL has formed a partnership with US destination design firm WATG and sustainable implementation group the International Tourism Partnership (ITP) to draft a set of sustainable hotel development guidelines. All hotel feasibility studies produced by Horwath will include the new guidelines. The studies will also reference and include a document called Going Green, Minimum Standards Towards a Sustainable Hotel, prepared by the ITP. It is

Construction work on a new sports centre in Ealing, West London, which will replace the now demolished Northolt Swimarama, has begun. The development, which is estimated to cost around £15m, forms part of the council's local strategy to help combat the nation's obesity crisis by improving sport facilities. The new 5,500sq m centre, which is yet to be named, will feature an eight-lane, 25m swimming pool and 12m x 16m

The first phase of a £60m redevelopment of the Leicester Tigers' Welford Road ground will be completed in time for the 2009-10 season. The first phase of the project, which involves the creation of a new Caterpillar Stand on the Granby Halls side of the stadium, will see capacity boosted from 17,500 to 24,500. The revamp, which was designed by architects Frank Whittle Partnership, is being carried out by construction

East India Dock Basin in London is set to become a major park and visitor destination after four development partners were shortlisted to transform the site. Located opposite the O2 arena on the north side of the River Thames, the 10-acre (4-hectare) site is one of the first phase projects for the new Lea River Park in the Lower Lea Valley. Lea Valley Regional Park Authority (LVRPA) and London Thames