Last week in real estate 21-27 April

With the Arabian Travel Market descending on Dubai’s World Trade Centre, it has been a busy week of announcements on the UAE real estate scene. With Dubai and Abu Dhabi both major global hubs for travel, and investment continuing to pour into the tourism industries of both emirates, UAE real estate development, hospitality and tourism continue to work closely together as part of the country’s development. Read on for our round up of the biggest news from some of the emirate’s major real estate developers this week.

Emaar Hospitality Group announces major milestone

Emaar Hospitality Group, the leisure arm of Dubai-based UAE real estate giant Emaar Properties, has revealed this week that it now has 50 hotels in its portfolio, 35 upcoming projects, and, 15 hotels and serviced residences currently operational. Olivier Harnisch, Chief Executive Officer of Emaar Hospitality Group, said: “Since 2007, we have been shaping a new identity and presence in the hospitality scene, and with three distinctive brands, we have now achieved a remarkable milestone in our growth journey of having a robust portfolio of 50 hospitality projects – both operational and upcoming – together offering more than 25,000 rooms and residences.

“While our primary footprint is the UAE and the Middle East and North Africa region, we are delighted by the response from owners and developers to our hotel concepts, and are expanding to new geographies.”

Emaar’s Dubai-based hospitality operations are well known, and it is currently developing new projects, not just in the UAE, but in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Turkey and the Maldives.

Aldar begins handover of nareel island and al merief

Master developer Aldar has commenced handover of properties on properties on Nareel Island, a series of properties in a luxury, gated development sold exclusively to UAE nationals. The developer also announced the start of handovers for Al Merief, its plot developments at Khalifa City. In an update published at the start of the week, the developer announced more exciting news for the UAE real estate market, saying construction was making “strong progress” at its developments at Yas Island and West Yas, with handovers expected to start soon. The Aldar projects are some of the many exciting properties for sale in Abu Dhabi.

Nakheel awards AED 825 million construction contract for Nad Al Sheba Mall

Nakheel this week announced the appointment of Metac General Contracting Company to build a new mall in Nad Al Sheba, in a contract worth AED 595 million with a total development value of AED 825 million. The 1.4M sq. ft. shopping, dining and entertainment destination is due for completion in 2021.

The development will have 200 shops, restaurants and entertainment outlets spread across 500,000 sq. ft. of leasable space. Nad Al Sheba Mall will have supermarkets (Spinneys and Union Co-op), department stores, a multi-screen cinema, medical clinic, fitness centre and a variety of of restaurants and cafes. It will be located off Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Road, and will serve the growing community of Nad Al Sheba, which will have more than 11,000 high-end villas.

The area includes Nakheel’s own community development of 1,572 villas, a large proportion of which, 468 in total are being built by Metac, after a AED 781M contract was awarded in 2015. The villas in Nad Al Sheba are expected to be available for rent from early 2019.

Nad Al Sheba Mall is part of Nakheel Mall’s AED22B expansion that will take its total retail space to over 17 million sq. ft. The company recently awarded a contract for AED4.2B  to build Deira Mall, the biggest mall in the Middle East in terms of leasable space.

DAMAC targets 15,000 hotel units by 2021

DAMAC Hotels & Resorts, the hospitality arm of DAMAC, announced a huge acceleration of its portfolio of hotel units in the period running up to and immediately after Dubai’s hosting of Expo 2020. The company currently has 1700 units, but hopes to more than double that by the end of this year to reach 5,500, and chairman Hussain Sajwani hailed the “challenging and thrilling” goal of reaching 15,000 units by 2021 at this year’s Arabian Travel Market (ATM).

He said: “Over the past four years, DAMAC has delivered 1,700 hotel units that are in operation currently, and we’re looking to increase that to over 5,500 rooms by year end. With Expo 2020 just around the corner, there is much expected from Dubai’s hospitality sector, and this global destination is all set to welcome over 20 million visitors in the coming years. The goal of delivering 15,000 keys by 2021 is a task that is both challenging and thrilling.”

Jean Faivre, Senior Vice President – Hospitality, DAMAC Hotels & Resorts, said: “DAMAC has already set new trends with the DAMAC Maison and DAMAC Maison Royale brands, and I am confident that the coming years will see DAMAC a top contributor to world-class hospitality in the UAE and beyond. With room occupancy topping 29 million room nights last year and at 78% occupancy rate, we anticipate a lot more hospitality units will be needed to cope with the influx of tourists over the coming years.”

There are currently two hospitality brands under the DAMAC umbrella: DAMAC Maison Royale and DAMAC Maison. Current operational projects are located in and around Downtown Dubai and Business Bay, with others planned for elsewhere in the city.

That’s all from this week’s round up from the UAE real estate scene. As you can see, it has been a busy week thanks to the Arabian Travel Market, with announcements from a number of major developers who are looking to push forward with their hospitality divisions thanks to Dubai’s hosting of Expo 2020. Don’t forget to pop back next week and catch up with all the UAE real estate news and gossip.