Mr Guy’s designs are based on making the properties much brighter, using a palette of light greys and whites for furnishing. Olympio Bongat Jr
Mr Guy’s designs are based on making the properties much brighter, using a palette of light greys and whites for furnishing. Olympio Bongat Jr
Mr Guy’s designs are based on making the properties much brighter, using a palette of light greys and whites for furnishing. Olympio Bongat Jr
Mr Guy’s designs are based on making the properties much brighter, using a palette of light greys and whites for furnishing. Olympio Bongat Jr

Old Town apartments in Dubai with a new face for Dh3.7m


Michael Fahy
  • English
  • Arabic

Rick Guy is a big fan of The Old Town apartments – the series of low-rise blocks arranged around the outside of Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Boulevard in Emaar’s Downtown Dubai master-planned community. Well, sort of.

Mr Guy, a British property professional, has developed a sideline in buying properties in the community, ripping out the fittings, upgrading them and selling them on.

He says The Old Town has a lot to offer. “You’re a five-minute walk from Dubai Mall, you’re on the Boulevard, you have the Opera House, numerous restaurants.”

The Old Town buildings, meanwhile, are a rare thing in that most are three-storey buildings, and even the taller mid-rise apartments are no higher than about eight storeys.

“It’s the only development in Downtown that is low-rise, and you’re certainly not going to get any more because the [land] values are so high that you have to go up so many storeys to make it stack up,” says Mr Guy.

__________

In pictures: See how Mr Guy has refurbished the apartment

__________

For the property developer, there are only two downsides to the area: the traffic and the original decor.

This is where Mr Guy has found his niche, having converted four apartments in The Old Town and a property at Emirates Hills.

The Old Town conversions have all been similar in style, although each one is tailored to the individual property.

His latest is a 1,354 square feet, two-bedroom property on the sixth floor of a Reehan community building, on the market for Dh3.7 million with Dubai-based agency Ascot & Company. “Apart from the tiles underneath the floor, there isn’t a square inch that hasn’t been ripped out and changed. All of the ceilings are new, the bathrooms are new, and they’re all marble,” he says.

Kitchen spaces are also opened out to create a brighter kitchen/dining area with a breakfast bar, and in the bathrooms baths have been removed and replaced with wet rooms.

Q&A:

Rick Guy tells Michael Fahy about the rationale behind his refits:

What are you looking to achieve with these refurbishments?

I naturally go for a western, modern, quite simple and light look. I’ve seen what sells in London and I’m trying to do the same here in Dubai. It really is just a case of opening it up, making it feel bigger and getting in a lot more natural light.

Who would live in a house like this?

If someone wanted a pad in Downtown which is a good size, a good layout with a full Burj Khalifa view, they can just walk in here, drop their bags and turn the TV on. The difficulty I’ve found is that a lot of the people who like these are end users. End users often come with a mortgage, and mortgages sometimes can’t stack up at the value that we are looking to sell.

Why is that?

In London, if you buy somewhere and it is substantially [upgraded], a valuer will look into what work appliances have been put in, what finishes have been put in, etc, and they take that into account. Here, they just look at the last four or five sales that have been completed, take an average and put that as the value. It’s a risk-averse approach to take.

Why do you change kitchens?

Sometimes there is a culture if you have staff cooking for you of having the kitchen segregated. But I don’t think that’s really the case in the Old Town. I open up the kitchen and create more space.

mfahy@thenational.ae

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RESULTS: 2018 WORLD CUP QUALIFYING - EUROPE

Albania 0 Italy 1
Finland 2 Turkey 2
Macedonia 4 Liechtenstein
Iceland 2 Kosovo 0
Israel 0 Spain 1
Moldova 0 Austria 1
Serbia 1 Georgia 0
Ukraine 0 Croatia 2
Wales 0 Ireland 1

US PGA Championship in numbers

Joost Luiten produced a memorable hole in one at the par-three fourth in the first round.

To date, the only two players to win the PGA Championship after winning the week before are Rory McIlroy (2014 WGC-Bridgestone Invitational) and Tiger Woods (2007, WGC-Bridgestone Invitational). Hideki Matsuyama or Chris Stroud could have made it three.

Number of seasons without a major for McIlroy, who finished in a tie for 22nd.

4 Louis Oosthuizen has now finished second in all four of the game's major championships.

In the fifth hole of the final round, McIlroy holed his longest putt of the week - from 16ft 8in - for birdie.

For the sixth successive year, play was disrupted by bad weather with a delay of one hour and 43 minutes on Friday.

Seven under par (64) was the best round of the week, shot by Matsuyama and Francesco Molinari on Day 2.

Number of shots taken by Jason Day on the 18th hole in round three after a risky recovery shot backfired.

Jon Rahm's age in months the last time Phil Mickelson missed the cut in the US PGA, in 1995.

10 Jimmy Walker's opening round as defending champion was a 10-over-par 81.

11 The par-four 11th coincidentally ranked as the 11th hardest hole overall with a scoring average of 4.192.

12 Paul Casey was a combined 12 under par for his first round in this year's majors.

13 The average world ranking of the last 13 PGA winners before this week was 25. Kevin Kisner began the week ranked 25th.

14 The world ranking of Justin Thomas before his victory.

15 Of the top 15 players after 54 holes, only Oosthuizen had previously won a major.

16 The par-four 16th marks the start of Quail Hollow's so-called "Green Mile" of finishing holes, some of the toughest in golf.

17 The first round scoring average of the last 17 major champions was 67.2. Kisner and Thorbjorn Olesen shot 67 on day one at Quail Hollow.

18 For the first time in 18 majors, the eventual winner was over par after round one (Thomas shot 73).

Infiniti QX80 specs

Engine: twin-turbocharged 3.5-liter V6

Power: 450hp

Torque: 700Nm

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The burning issue

The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE. 

Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on

Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins

Read part one: how cars came to the UAE

 

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