Construction

First MBR City project to be completed within seven years

By Gavin Davids

Posted on May 3, 2013

Joint venture between Meydan and Sobha Group is expected to be worth $5.7 billion

Mohammed Bin Rashid City – District One will be the mega-project’s first development, Meydan Sobha say.

The first project within Mohammed Bin Rashid City will be completed within the next seven years, the developers have said.

A joint venture between Meydan Group and Sobha Group, the project is expected to be worth $5.71 billion, said Saeed Al Tayer, Meydan’s chairman and chief executive, at a press conference. It will be named Mohammed Bin Rashid City – District One.

Located along Al Khail road, next to Meydan Racecourse, the project covers four million square metres of freehold land. It will include 1,500 luxury villas, a 350,000sqm water park, seven kilometres of lagoons and man-made beaches, retail zones and sports attractions.

Al Tayer said that Meydan Sobha, the 50/50 joint venture and contractor, would complete the project in four phases and that phase one had broken ground last month.

The first phase will take three years for the construction of 375 villas, water lagoon, and a park, he said. A show village will be built by October to show potential investors the three villas styles of contemporary, Arabic and Mediterranean and will include a sales centre.

Each villa could sell for Dh9 million and upwards, said P.N.C. Menon, Chairman of the Sobha Group.

When asked how the JV will fund the project, Al Tayer told Gulf News that 40 to 50 per cent will be “self-funded” and the remainder from financial institutions and investors. “We have the funds to go through with phase one.”

The developers would not reveal the cost of the project. “It would be harmful to us,” Al Tayer said.

A number of mega-projects announced by other developers during the boom years were cancelled or stalled but Al Tayer assured: “We will deliver on it…the proof is in the building and delivery.”