LUSAIL, Qatar (AP) 鈥� Less than a month before it is set to host the final, Lusail City is oddly quiet.
Wide empty streets, idle lobbies and construction cranes are everywhere in the sleek district 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the capital, Doha, built to accommodate World Cup fans and hundreds of thousands of host nation Qatar鈥檚 residents.
But with soccer鈥檚 biggest event underway, the empty futuristic city is raising questions about how much use the infrastructure Qatar built for the event will get after more than a million soccer fans leave the small Gulf Arab nation after the tournament.
Elias Garcia, a 50-year old business owner from San Francisco, visited Lusail City from Doha with a friend on a day when there wasn鈥檛 a soccer game in the city鈥檚 bowl-shaped, golden stadium.
鈥淲e came to check it out but there鈥檚 not much here,鈥� Garcia said, looking up at a huge crescent-shaped skyscraper behind him designed to look like the curved swords on Qatar鈥檚 national emblem.
Across the street, a building site was concealed by a low fence illustrated with desert scenes. 鈥淓verything looks like it鈥檚 under construction,鈥� Garcia said. 鈥淚t's just empty lots with little walls they put up to make you think it's up and running.鈥�
Driving north from Doha, Lusail City's glittering skyline and marina are hard to miss. Pastel-colored towers that look like crates stacked on each other rise from the desert. Wide avenues give way to zigzagging buildings, glass domes and clusters of neoclassical housing blocks. It鈥檚 unclear if anyone lives in them. Most are advertised as luxury hotels, apartments or commercial office space. Cranes hang above many buildings.
Plans for Lusail City had been around since 2005 but construction was fast-tracked after Qatar won the rights to host the World Cup five years later. Backed by , the city was designed to be compact and pedestrian friendly and is connected by Doha鈥檚 new metro and a light rail.
Fahad Al Jahamri, who manages projects at Qatari Diar, the real estate company behind the city that's backed by Qatar's Investment Authority, has called Lusail City a self-contained 鈥渆xtension of Doha.鈥�
Officials have also said the city is part of broader plans that natural gas-rich Qatar has to build its knowledge economy 鈥� an admission of the type of white-collar professionals the country hopes to attract to the city long-term.
But reaching its goal of housing 400,000 people in Lusail City could be tough in a country where only 300,000 people are citizens, and many of the 2.9 million residents are poor migrants who live in camps, not luxury towers.
Even during the World Cup, Lusail City is noticeably quieter than Doha, itself the site of jaw-dropping amounts of construction over the past decade in preparation for the event.
At the Place Vendome, a luxury mall named for the grand Parisian square, many stores are not yet open. A few tourists snapped pictures of Lusail City鈥檚 skyline on a recent afternoon from the mall while cashiers talked among themselves. At a building downtown housing the Ministry of Culture and other government offices, a security guard said almost everyone had left by 11 a.m.
鈥淓ven on the metro, if you go on a day when there鈥檚 not a match, there are like five to 10 people on it besides you,鈥� Garcia said.
On the man-made Al Maha Island, a crowd of World Cup fans and locals lounged at an upscale beach club, pulling on shisha tobacco pipes and dipping into a swimming pool.
Timothe Burt-Riley directed workers at an art gallery opening later that night. The French gallery director said Lusail City 鈥� or at least Al Maha Island with its amusement park, high-end boutiques, restaurants and lounges, would be a place where locals come to meet.
鈥淭his is a totally man-made island,鈥� Burt-Riley said, "it鈥檚 pretty crazy what they can do.鈥�
He said Qatar could find a way to make use of the infrastructure it's built for the World Cup, including seven new soccer stadiums, but admitted, 鈥渋t might take time.鈥�
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Suman Naishadham, The Associated Press
