Pearl Jumeirah island 90% finished and 45% sold

The Dubai Government-owned company Meraas Development said land reclamation on the project will be completed by the end of next month and infrastructure in place by the first quarter of 2012.

Visitors looking at the map of the Pearl Jumeirah Island at Meraas Stand at Cityscape Global 2010.

Meraas Development has built more than 90 per cent of an island being constructed through land reclamation off the coast of Dubai and has started selling plots, a top executive said.

Sina al Kazim, the chief business development officer of the Dubai Government-owned Meraas, said the Pearl Jumeirah was already 45 per cent sold to investors. Land reclamation would be completed by the end of next month and infrastructure would be in place by the end of the first quarter of 2012, Mr al Kazim said.

"The people who are buying want to live here," he said. "We realised there was a demand for unique villa living in 2009 and redid our master plan for the area." The original plans for the project, previously known as East Bay, envisioned it as one of several new islands off Al Satwa and Al Waslin Dubai. Each would have a high-rise tower. In combination, the towers would stand like lighthouses along the coast.

The entire project, called Jumeirah Gardens, is remembered as one of the grandest announcements in Dubai property history. At Cityscape Dubai in 2008, it was unveiled as a Dh350 billion (US$95bn) project with several innovative skyscraper designs by Adrian Smith, the designer of the Burj Khalifa.

Now, Mr al Kazim says, the company has deferred its more ambitious plans and is focusing on market demand. Meraas is also playing a project-management role for the Wasl Square villa project, which is owned by Dubai Real Estate Corporation, and is building an industrial project near the Dubai Creek extension. "Everything depends on the market," he said.

Pearl Jumeirah will be a more modest project than initially planned. The present configuration calls for several hundred villas and a five-star beachfront hotel looking onto the Gulf. Buyers can build their own villas or hire Meraas to build for them. So far, the majority of buyers are Emiratis, but increasing numbers of Indians and Iranians are expressing interest in the project, Mr al Kazim said.