Dubai: Deyaar has made its first push into the hospitality space with one-half of its new Dh900 million twin-tower development given over to hotel apartments. Launch of “The Atria” (with a built-up of 1.25 million square feet) also marks a return for the developer to its favoured stomping group — the Business Bay master-development.
Completion is scheduled for the first quarter of 2017. Launch of sales for the residential units (together totalling 219) will commence within days. Top Deyaar official declined to name launch prices. But a recently completed residential project by the developer in the same location is going for Dh1,500-Dh1,600 a square foot.
The hospitality component at The Atria will take the form of 350 serviced apartments.
For The Atria, Deyaar has a partnership with the UK’s boutique design firm, yoo, which is helmed by John Hitchcox and Philippe Starck. Yoo will be responsible for bringing on the “branded” concept into the project through bespoke designs. (Branded units also carry an up to 60 per cent premium over non-generic property in Dubai’s current realty environment.)
On whether the yoo association will continue for all upcoming Deyaar hospitality-themed projects, Saeed Mohammad Al Qatami, CEO at the developer said: “As of now it is only for the just announced project… in future there could be others where we feel such an association could add value to what we develop.”
Design-led living
According to Hitchcox, “We will utilise yoo Studio’s ‘culture’ and ‘minimal’ design palettes for the interiors to create apartments that offer the best in fluid, design-led living.”
With Deyaar now getting a foothold in hospitality-specific ventures, it means all of Dubai’s leading developers now have exposures in that sector, where despite all the new stock additions demand never seems enough to fulfil upcoming demand. Deyaar’s stated plan is to develop its hospitality assets on an 1 million square feet land canvas.
However, Al Qatami confirmed that Deyaar has no plans to create a hotel management division of its own for the moment, and that property management will be done by third-party hotel majors.
Deyaar has been getting a lot of momentum from its considerably stock of office space at Business Bay. “It’s a misconception that the current property upswing in Dubai is limited to residential; we have one of the highest stocks of office space at Business Bay,” said Al Qatami. “From 300,000 square feet held by us last year, the office stock has come down to less than 100,000 square feet.”
