Water Gardens is a $1.4 billion, four-building addition to Dubai's financial hub that mixes hotels, residences and office space. A second hotel is under construction, planned to include 154 rooms alongside 40 residences. The project's 132 unit Eden House apartment building will be held for rental income.
On the office side, a 12 story tower will add 246,737 square feet of Grade A space and a members club, according to H&H CEO Miltos Bossinis. According to chairman Shahab Lutfi, the bulk of the project is slated to be run as leased assets. H&H was co-founded by Lutfi alongside Mohamed bin Hadi Al Hussaini, who serves as the UAE Minister of State for Financial Affairs.
Lutfi says deals are still closing even as volumes cool. In the district, H&H completed sales last week of two Four Seasons branded homes priced at 35 million dirhams ($9.5 million) and 45 million dirhams. He noted that roughly 85% of the branded residences have already been purchased, with per-square-foot prices exceeding 8,000 dirhams, placing them among the area's highest.
At the outset of the war, Iranian attacks aimed at the United Arab Emirates led some foreign buyers to pull back, which in turn cooled Dubai's property sales. The number of transactions has slipped, while prices and rents have mostly held, with only marginal declines. For the first time, the city's financial hub crossed the threshold of 10,000 active registered companies.
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Geopolitics has pushed up building costs. Lutfi said construction materials are about 15% pricier. Even so, he noted, "it's not like people are running away or reducing the sales price drastically," and that "If you're lucky, you might get 4% or 5% discount on some projects, not in ours, but around the city."
Asked about his company's sales, Lutfi said, "I'd comfortably say there is a 50% drop at least, if not more, but that's expected," referring to March through September compared with the same stretch last year. His take: "There are cycles in every industry and Dubai always comes out of these cycles much stronger," adding, "We don't look at it on a short terms basis and we've managed our financials pretty well." Construction is underway with 30,000 workers on site, and Water Gardens is slated to complete before the end of 2028, a timeline that puts new homes, hotel keys and Grade A offices on the horizon for anyone planning around future supply in the city's core.
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