High Rise Real Estate, along with Aspire, a year-old leasing, sales and property management firm projecting a turnover of Dh1 billion this year, yesterday launched the Dh1bn Jumeirah Wave Business Towers (JWBT), a commercial development in Jumeirah Village.
Comprising three 45-storey towers with a total of 960 offices, JWBT is the cheapest commercial real estate available in Dubai today, claims Aspire. Available for a launch price of Dh525 per sq ft, the first of the three towers has already been sold to 32 local and international companies.
"Our unique selling proposition is the price, which is 15 per cent less than the immediate next competitor.
"The average price in the commercial market today is about Dh1,000 per sq ft," said Harshit Kantaria, the Managing Director of Aspire.
All three Jumeirah towers are expected to be completed by December 2008.
"Tower One was fully booked by international investors in a single day prior to the launch of the project.
"And while the second tower is due to be fully sold in the next 15 days for the same price of Dh525 per sq ft, we might raise the price to Dh575 per sq ft for the third tower.
"But that would still be way lower than the industry benchmark," said Aspire Director Aftab Hemani.
JWBT is the first big project for High Rise Real Estate.
Its existing projects include a rotating tower in Jumeirah Village, a four-star hotel in Ajman and a development in Umm Al Quwain.
Faisal Ali Mousa, the owner of JWTB, said the next big project, due for launch in the next two weeks, is a Dh8bn mixed-use development in Ras Al Khaimah.
The company will launch a Dh7bn project in Abu Dhabi "soon", he said.
"It is a complete city we are going to build in Ras Al Khaimah, comprising hotels, offices, residential, shopping malls and entertainment." "The Abu Dhabi development will be on one of the islands, which we will launch in a joint venture with a publicly traded company," said Mousa.
High Rise will invest Dh20bn in the UAE alone this year, he said, including its existing portfolio of about Dh7bn.
The property market in Dubai is witnessing a boom.
Commercial market
The commercial end of the property market in Dubai is unlikely to witness a correction for the next two years, said Kantaria.
"I can see a correction in the residential market in about six months. That will be a very qualitative correction, but there is no chance for a correction in the commercial market for the next two years," he said.
"Less than 10 per cent of total investment is going into commercial development in Dubai.
"Ideally, it should be 20 per cent," he said.
"Demand for residential property from Australia, UK, Russia and other parts of the world was so high that developers ignored the commercial part altogether.
"Now they realise it is too late. So there is nothing available."
By Shweta Jain
© Emirates Today 2006
