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DUBAI / WAM
Lootah Real Estate has signed a deal with Dubai South to develop more than one million square foot of housing units at the site’s residential district. The agreement, which is a joint venture between Lootah Real Estate and Dubai South, will result in the construction of 1,150,548 sq ft of residential units over a number of phases.
Lootah Real Estate’s executive director Saleh Abdullah Lootah, who signed the agreement with Dubai Airport City Corporation’s executive chairman, Khalifa Al Zaffin, said that it had decided to sign the partnership with Dubai South “based on the strong growth potential†of the area, citing developments such as the nearby Expo 2020 site and the Al Maktoum International Airport – both of which are part of the Dubai South masterplan. “Winning such a project is a matter of pride, and we are happy to be part of this urban project which will further add to Dubai’s unique offerings,†Lootah said.
Dubai South has already signed agreements with a number of other developers for the site. Emaar Properties is building a 7 square kilometre project that will contain 15,000 homes around a golf course development known as Emaar South after announcing an agreement at the Cityscape 2016 exhibition in September last year, and Deyaar announced in January its own joint venture with Dubai South to build a 1.27 million sq ft project in the residential district. In total, it is expected that about 10,000 homes will be built in the residential district, housing 35,000 residents. It will also contain schools, hospitals, nurseries, shops, food and beverage outlets, a post office and a sports centre.
A report published by ReidIN and Global Capital Partners on Sunday stated that there had been an “exponential growth†in property transactions that have taken place within the district, with the number of deals for the first seven months of 2017 increasing by 285 percent.
It said that sales have been launched for more than 6,000 units on the site, but that a further 28,000 are currently in the planning phase across the whole of the Dubai South development. “We expect the number of developments offered to ratchet significantly higher in 2018 and 2019,†it said.
Moreover, although 76 percent of the deals that have taken place at the site have been in the affordable segment of the market (below one million UAE dirhams, or $272,180), the report stated that it expects prices to increase despite the availability of more units as it becomes more popular and developers drive up land prices.