The Dubai developer behind Motor City is in high-level talks to ressurect a bid to bring Formula One to the city.
Dubai-listed Union Properties is hoping to attract the world’s top motor racing event to its Dubai Autodrome track in Motor City.
Union Properties, which owns the 35 million square feet Motor City project said that it has been holding discussions with the Dubai Government about bidding to attract the motor sport extravaganza.
"We have all the infrastructure ready. It has been certified that it is the level required for Formula One and we hope it will be used for [F1] training," Ahmed Khalaf Obaid bin Touq Al Marri, the general manager of Union Properties told The National.
“The infrastructure had been specially made to attract Formula One. We are ready on the side of the infrastructure. When will Dubai get Formula One? This is an issue for the future. Because when we plan to do that all the entities, the government will support that.”
Dubai Autodrome, which was opened in 2004, has become home to various motor sports events including the Dubai 24-hour endurance race and GT races.
The news of a potential Dubai Grand Prix bid comes as Union Properties resumes construction work on six Dubai schemes worth Dh4 billion after spending the past five years attempting to tackle crippling debts to its lenders and attempting to pay back contractors left out of pocket when the Dubai property market crashed in 2008.
“We have settled all of our debts and we are settling with all of our contractors,” Mr Al Marri said. “In 2013 our profits were eight times those in 2012. We are back developing projects.”
The company, which suffered losses of Dh1.56bn in 2011, was forced to sell many of its prestigious assets, including the Ritz- Carlton hotel and substantial stakes in Limestone House and Index Tower to major shareholder Emirates NBD.
Motor City was launched in 2005 as a motor racing-themed community housing 25,000 people built around a race track and the world’s first F1 theme park. The grand project was to be built on 35 million square feet of land gifted by the Dubai Government.
However, after spending Dh950 million on works, the project was suspended in 2009 after Dubai Properties was hit hard by the global financial crisis. The company says that it has developed just 25 per cent of its land at Motor City, while last year Union Properties was forced to finally cancel a multimillion dollar agreement with the F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone to build a theme park and forfeit a US$10m signing-on fee with his company Formula One Administration.
Since then Abu Dhabi has built many of the attractions Union Properties first envisaged with its plans including its own F1 track and motor racing theme park Ferrari World.
Abu Dhabi hosted its first Grand Prix in 2009. The race rolled into the Bahrain International Cicuit this week and will return to the capital between November 21 and 23.
In September Union Properties said it was pressing ahead with six new real estate projects including a development of 70 shops called The Ribbon and 40 stores at an expansion of its Uptown Mirdif retail district.
Mr Al Marri said that Union Properties had awarded construction contracts to Fujairah National Construction to start work on the two retail schemes.
He added that the company had also signed a joint venture with Dubai Investments to build another 210 town houses at its Green Community close to the Dubai Expo 2020 site.
He also said that after the company last year decided to increase the amount of shares which can be owned by foreigners from 15 to 25 per cent it would consider raising the cap on how much of the company foreign investors can own even further.
“We are planning to do things step by step,” Mr Al Marri said. “We do not want to reach too high and then we cannot make it. If we reach 25 per cent we will go up. We have reached 15 per cent already. We will go up until we reach the 50 per cent if we can. But we will do this slowly.”
lbarnard@thenational.ae
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