"The main contract works, the dome, mechanical, electrical, is tendered today," Felix Reinberg, director of projects delivery at TDIC's museum division, told reporters on the sidelines of a tour of the island.
Dignitaries and diplomats, including UAE Labor Minister Saqr Gobash and Minister of Foreign Trade Sheikha Lubna bint Khalid Al-Qasimi, toured the island for a development update.
They visited the Saadiyat Construction Village, which is now home to more than 4,500 construction workers who work on various development projects across the island, and to the recently launched Saadiyat Beach Golf Club, an 18-hole championship golf course.
The diplomats were briefed on the construction progress of the world-class museums which will open in 2013 in the Saadiyat Island Cultural District.
Saadiyat Island is at the forefront of Abu Dhabi's vision to become a global capital city and will host the largest concentration of cultural museums in the world.
Located off the coast of Abu Dhabi, Saadiyat Island -- which means "the island of happiness" -- is a $27 billion art and culture project that is planned to house spin-offs of the Louvre museum in Paris and New York's Guggenheim.
Reinberg said the tendering process would close in June.
TDIC commissioned French architect Jean Nouvel to design the island's Louvre building, which will be shaped like a floating dome.
Reinberg said TDIC had short-listed between 10 and 20 companies for the construction of the museum.
Bidding for the main contract for the Guggenheim offshoot will start in the first quarter of 2011, while a third museum, the Zayed National Museum which was designed by Lord Norman Foster, will have tendering launched in July 2010.
The island's cultural district will house the three museums, as well as a Performing Arts Center that was designed by Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid.
