DUBAI: Emaar Properties and Dubai Holding, a conglomerate owned by the emirate’s ruler, have joined forces to restart work on The Lagoons, a giant real estate project that was first announced in 2008 but then stalled by Dubai’s property crash.
The sixmillion square metre development will feature a business district, residential units and hotels, the companies said in a statement yesterday.
They gave few other details, and did not say how the project would be financed or when construction would be completed.
Real estate developers, many of them state-controlled, have announced tens of billions of dollars worth of projects in the past year as Dubai has recovered from its 2009-2010 real estate slump and corporate debt crisis.
Invest Group Overseas, an investment company headquartered in Dubai, said yesterday it would launch in 2014 a Dh2.1bn ($572m) residential real estate project in the emirate.
And family-owned conglomerate Al Habtoor Group unveiled plans for a $3bn development that would include 3,000 hotel and residential units, sited next to a canal that is to be built in the city’s downtown area.
Some analysts doubt that all of the projects announced this year can be completed, or at least finished on time; the relatively small size of the emirate’s capital markets could make financing all of them difficult.
There is also concern that the real estate market may be recovering too fast, creating a bubble which would eventually be burst by excess supply.
Dubai property prices fell by more 50 than percent after 2009 but have gained more than 22 percent over the past year, according to a report by consultants Jones Lang LaSalle last week. JLL said this rebound was unsustainable, warning there could be a correction next year.
Reuters
