Progress report: alghadeer, Masdar City, Hydra Village

Fellow blogger

Asa Fitch

and I went on a drive around Abu Dhabi last weekend and ended up at the future site of

S

orouh Real Estate

's alghadeer project. The company

. We could not see any construction from the road, but Sorouh has previously released pictures of show villas at the site, so they must be out there somewhere.

All we could see were red flags marking out a few plots near the road. Then again, the master plan for the project is huge. Maybe we were just looking at the edge of it.

Photo caption: Shot of part of the future alghadeer site, a massive community being developed by Sorouh Real Estate. Bradley Hope / The National

The project is located in the desert on a road between Sheikh Zayed road and the bottom-most part of Emirates Road. (Check it out on the

). It will supposedly be a landscape-covered commuter city that is strategically located between Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and Dubai.

After the jump, I've included some other photos of projects around the capital, including the first part of Masdar City - the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, and a very distant shot of the controversial Hydra Village...

Photo caption: View of the busy construction site for Masdar Institute of Science and Technology near the airport. Bradley Hope / The National

Photo caption: View of the gate and guards that prevented us from seeing the progress of Hydra Village up close. Bradley Hope / The National

Photo caption: View of the controversial Hydra Village project from a wall in the distance. Unfortunately, we could not get closer. Bradley Hope / The National