Al Barari to proceed with delayed giant organic-themed project in Dubai

The private developer behind some of Dubai's biggest private gardens has said it will finally press ahead with plans to build an organic themed housing, shopping, dining and hospitality scheme one and a half times bigger than Dubai Marina.

Mohammed Zaal, the chief of Al Barari, says the company’s new development will challenge the shopping centre retail model. Charles Crowell for The National

The private developer behind some of Dubai’s biggest private gardens has said it will finally press ahead with plans to build an organic-themed housing, shopping, dining and hospitality project set to be one-and-a-half times bigger than Dubai Marina.

The Zaal family, owners of the Farm organic restaurant and the Greenworks nursery, said after four years of waiting, it was ready to relaunch plans for 9 million square feet of homes, gardens, shops and offices. The project will also feature the city’s first Thai-style floating market at its Al Barari development in Dubailand.

The family, which is putting the final touches to the last of its 217 super luxury villas surrounded by lush gardens and greenery at Al Barari’s 6 million sq ft first phase said yesterday it had started to sell off-plan apartments for its adjacent second phase.

Al Barari originally planned to start work on phase two, which includes 1,250 apartments, a resort hotel and 13,000 square metres of organic themed shops and restaurants including art galleries, an organic supermarket and a floating market, back in 2010.

However, as the global financial crisis hit, the family took the decision to delay and spent its time completing work on its parkland and signature palatial villas which sold for Dh15 million to Dh75m and are currently 95 per cent occupied.

The Al Barari chief executive Mohammed Zaal told The National it had started selling a first block of 157 off-plan luxury apartments with prices starting at Dh3 million.

“We were due to start six months or a year into the recession which wasn’t suitable,” Mr Zaal said. “I think Dubai is back. There’s high demand for property in Dubai and this is just the right time commercially to do it.

“We’re trying to create a destination so you come and spend a whole day out here shopping, eating, coming for plays or the cultural side of it,” he said. “We want to attract butchers, bakers, delicatessens. Things like the Farm. Things which represent Al Barari and not your standard shopping mall experience which is what we hate. Eighty per cent of the space will be gardens which will be open to the public.”

Al Barari has emerged as one of the few success stories of Dubailand, a 278 square kilometre entertainment district located on the outskirts of Dubai. The family, which operates a number of other interests including plans for a UAE-based organic farm, said it had no debt and would fund the entire project through off-plan sales and its own balance sheet.

Mr Zaal, who lives in the existing Al Barari gated community with all of his extensive family, said that standard one-bedroom apartments would measure 1,980 sq ft while three-bedroom flats would go up to 3,850 sq ft. Other apartments will be even larger.

“These are not blocks of flats,” Mr Zaal said. “We don’t know what to call them. They are the size of villas but not separate.

“If you’re looking at scale the land size is one-and-a-half times bigger than Dubai Marina. It’s bigger than the trunk and most of the fronds of the Palm,” Mr Zaal added. “The density is very very low.”

Al Barari’s decision comes amid a flurry of announcements that major schemes planned in the UAE before the property crash are finally going ahead.

“The positive sentiment prevailing in Dubai, coupled with economic growth and the anticipated increase in demand have led a number of developers to announce pre-sales within large scale developments,” said Craig Plumb, the head of research at Jones Lang Lasalle’s Dubai office. “Projects in Dubailand account for 33 per cent of announced future supply.”