Property burst on Palm Jumeirah to provide hundreds of new apartments

Residential and serviced apartments at Kingdom of Sheba complex to be released this week, while Nakheel is launching 504 apartments in its Palm Tower, a 50-storey landmark development on the trunk of The Palm.

An artist’s rendering of Nakheel’s The Palm Tower on Palm Jumeirah, Dubai. WAM

The Palm Jumeirah is set for a fresh burst of property letting and construction activity, with hundreds of new apartments being started and released.

The Kuwait-based IFA Hotel Investments will start to release residential and serviced apartments at the Balqis Residence in its mixed-use Kingdom of Sheba complex on the Palm Crescent this week.

Separately, the master developer Nakheel said yesterday it was launching 504 apartments in its Palm Tower, a 50-storey landmark development on the trunk of the palm-shaped island.

IFA Hotels said it would launch a limited number of its one, two and three-bedroom apartments as well as four and five-bedroom villas in the freehold Balqis Residence, which is to comprise 389 villas, town houses, penthouses and apartments. The project is located near the breakwater and close to the Atlantis, The Palm.

Launched in 2006, work on the Kingdom of Sheba complex slowed down during the global financial downturn but has been restarted.

“About 83 per cent of the construction is complete,” said Joe Sita, the chief executive of IFA Hotel Investments, referring to the Balqis Residence. “It has a 15-month time frame left.”

The residential component comprises 240 units of one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments as well as four- and five-bedroom villas besides 108 serviced apartments.

The Balqis Residence will include a holiday and ownership project.

While the luxury residential apartments and villas can be rented out for a minimum of six months, the serviced apartments can be leased out for a night to a few weeks, said Stuart Cassidy, the vice president of client operations at IFA Hotels and Resorts.

The company declined to give price of the units or the rise in prices of the units since they launched.

The Kingdom of Sheba complex is to include two hotel components – a 70-room serviced apartment and condominium phase, which is expected to be available in three years, and a 550-room luxury hotel.

Both of these are to be managed by IFA Hotel Investments.

Almost 90 per cent of the 240-residential apartments in the Balqis Residence units have already been sold, Mr Sita said, with buyers from Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States, the UAE, Iran and Europe.

The financing has been through a combination of equity, third-party debt, investors and pre-sales.

“Now it is much easier to get funding than three or four years ago,” Mr Sita said.

The holiday ownership, or timeshare, model is increasingly popular in Dubai, with IFA Hotel Investments joining the likes of Viceroy The Palm and Anantara Residences The Palm for similar products.

IFA Hotel Investments also owns the Fairmont Heritage Place, which has five units for fractional ownership with 13 owners for each unit. They were released last year.

The company also manages the 562-unit Fairmont Residences on the Palm, which it launched in 2005.

Other international hotel operators that offer shared ownership products include Ritz-Carlton, Marriott Residence Club, Marriott Vacation Club, Hilton and Four Seasons.