20/09/2014 01:28 AST
The Palm Jumeirah, Dubai’s priciest freehold residential destination, is to have its first 100-metre high development, courtesy of a joint venture project between Omniyat Properties and the construction major Drake & Scull International. Sales of the super-luxury units — only 90 will be there and with floor areas between 2,500 square feet and a substantial 20,000 square feet — will be done in the third quarter and that too by-invitation only.
“Existing tall structures on the Palm tend to be around 50-52 metres and from the moment we acquired the plot with Drake & Scull the plan was to create a signature development,” said Mark Phoenix, Managing Director at Omniyat. “Given the significant resources the project and its design entails, it was always felt having a strategic partner made more sense than doing it alone. Drake & Scull brings in financial strength and construction expertise to the project.”
Construction of the project — located on a plot near the Viceroy Hotel — should be complete by 2017. (In 2005, a Trump Tower was announced for the Palm which would have been more than 250 metres high. But it was cancelled during the subsequent downturn.)
Details of the pricing of the Omniyat-D&S units will only be revealed closer to the launch day. A model will be on display at the Omniyat stand in Cityscape. A trio of global firms — Tokyo-headquartered Super Potato, Lebanon’s Vladimir and New York-based architects Soma — have already been signed up.
On why it wanted to have a by-invitation only sales programme, “If a prestige developer in Dubai targets a select buyer base, he doesn’t seem to have much of a problem selling out,” said Phoenix. “There’s a class of buyer globally who is extremely demanding in the kind of lifestyle he wants to buy into. Any developer who can create a property and a surrounding lifestyle around it can always expect to be successful. It’s not just the property alone.”
International investors
Property, lifestyle and location have come together seamlessly at the Palm Jumeirah. Even with the current slowdown at the top end of the market, transactions centred on the Palm have held their own.
“It’s relatively easy to offer luxury real estate as it fits in with the glamour of the city itself,” said Sameer Lakhani, who heads Global Capital Partners. “This may be true of any cosmopolitan city, but more so in Dubai where developers have relied extensively on international investors.
“The Palm more than any other luxury community has captured the zeitgeist of the address-conscious buyer. It is clearly reflected in the Dubai Land Department stats by virtue of having relatively stable volumes throughout the boom-and-bust and the subsequent recovery cycle.”
According to Simon Townsend, Business Development Manager at the consultancy DTZ, “There remains varied investor interest on the Palm much in line with the rest of Dubai, with demand reducing at the high-end signature villas where recent transactions have ranged between Dh2,750-Dh4,000 per square foot to potentially stronger demand for the apartments where Shoreline units recently traded around Dh1,500-Dh2,000 a square foot through to Dh3,000 for premium views.
“The enhanced service offering opportunities like at the Fairmont and Anantara have seen significant transaction activity.”
Gulf News
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