Schon to develop hotel complex in Dubai Investments Park

The developer behind the stalled Dubai Lagoon project in Dubai Investments Park has unveiled plans to build 2,550 hotel rooms.

Schon Properties on Tuesday announced plans for the Dh3.2 billion project within Dubai Investment Park.

Schon said the 2.6-million-square foot iSuites complex of 21 nine-storey buildings comprising the hotel apartments as well as 52 restaurant and cafes and a 125,000 sq ft shopping mall will be delivered in time for Dubai’s Expo in 2020.

It said it had awarded a construction contract to Dubai Civil Engineering to build the development and work on the project started in October. It said the first deliveries are expected by summer 2019 and the full project would be completed by summer 2020.

More than 2,500 people signed up to invest in Schon’s flagship Dubai Lagoon project in 2005. The project, scheduled to be completed in 2008, was billed to have included 49 buildings comprising 4,000 apartments around a man-made lagoon.

With little construction progress on site by 2014 and dozens of investors demanding their deposits, the Dubai Land Department announced the scheme would be broken into seven phases and monitored by Rera until completion.

Under the new agreement, two of the seven phases were redesigned as hotel apartments and are being marketed as the iSuites.

Despite assurances in 2014 that the Dubai Lagoon project would be complete by the end of 2016, the development still appears to be unoccupied. Schon said it expected the first residents to move in during the first quarter of 2017 and that 200 units were complete and waiting to be connected to electricity and water. It said that the entire master community would now be completed in 2019 or 2020.

Schon declined to comment to The National when asked how it would fund the new hotel project. It said it would make "news announcements in the next few weeks to update investors and customers".

“Experience has taught us to put our focus on what is the most important thing to our customers – that is delivering to customers on time and at the right price,” said Noorul Asif, the chief operating officer. “We are confident that with the team we have in place, iSuites will deliver on time.”

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