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Reclamation work on the Jumeirah Pearl, a mixed-use luxury development based offshore Dubai’s Jumeirah district, is almost complete, an official connected to the project has said.
“Island reclamation work has gone extremely well and is almost finished, but infrastructure still needs to go in,” Morne Fourie, Meeras Development’s director for urban planning architecture, told Arabian Business at the Cityscape Global exhibition in Dubai.
“The infrastructure distribution network was planned for August 2010, and the full island will be ready for delivery by 18 months past that time at the latest. You could in theory potentially start building on your plot earlier than that, but the island will be fully ready in terms of infrastructure by that date.”
Meeras Development will award infrastructure contracts for the island in November.
Jumeirah Pearl will incorporate residential plots with mosques, retail space and a luxury hotel on its northern beach. The Meeras Development executive declined to reveal which firm would be running the hotel.
Fourie said that investor interest in the project had been ‘substantial’ although he was unable to provide details.
“Buyers are mainly very wealthy individuals that buy multiple plots to consolidate them and build palaces,” he stated.
The intial plan for the island and the Jumeirah Garden City project was drawn up in 2008. But Meeras Development was forced to reconsider the masterplan due to the economic crisis.
“The density is substantially lower. Although we had a lot of villas on the island, we also had a few mixed-use, mixed-rise buildings,” said Fourie.
“Now we’ve taken all that off, so density is lower. We believe that as development is now taking part as per the 2020 plan mandated by Dubai Municipality, it’s the responsible thing to do.”
