Dubai's Lamcy Plaza mall building seeks new owner for Dh199.5m as auction process revives
Once popular neighbourhood mall has been shuttered since March 2017 fire
Dubai: The building that formerly housed ‘Lamcy Plaza’ – once one of Dubai’s popular neighborhood malls – is again up for auction. And available to a new owner who is willing to put up the base price of Dh199.5 million (and in increments of Dh100,000 if there are multiple bidders). There are two days and a bit for potential bidders to show their interest.
In May, the property had come up for auction and with minimum bid price set at Dh200 million. It attracted no bids.
The property had been non-operational since March 2017, when a fire a broke out and caused extensive damage to some of the floors. Since then, there had been multiple occasions when it looked likely that the mall would re-open – but nothing happened.
At the time of the fire, the mall was running quite successfully, helped by new residential and office buildings that opened in its immediate neighborhood. Lamcy also hosted one of the more successful food courts over the years.
“It will be interesting to see if potential bidders will sit this one out and wait for any further cut to the price,” said an industry source. “The property has potential given its location in Oud Metha, which has only seen further increases to its resident base in the 7 years since Lamcy was closed in 2017.
“Any potential new owner will want to come in at the ‘right’ price and have enough funds to re-develop the property to suit current market needs.”
Heavy auction action of Dubai property
This summer is proving to be quite a busy time for properties going on auction. The Palazzo Versace hotel in Dubai has been another prominent property that went up for auction, initially setting a bid price of Dh1.34 billion and then slashing it to just over Dh1 billion plus. Even then, there haven’t been any formal bids placed.
The Dubai real estate market has seen sizeable price gains across categories in the last 2-3 years. This also explains why the auction site is flooded with properties hoping to find new owners. “Banks and other lenders holding these properties because of loan defaults or other issues with the original buyer,” said the consultant.
“Through the auction, they are hoping to make an exit even if that means selling at a discount to the property’s ‘real’ market value.”
More to follow...