A scale model of the Louvre Abu Dhabi at TDIC’s booth in Cityscape. Lee Hoagland / The National
A scale model of the Louvre Abu Dhabi at TDIC’s booth in Cityscape. Lee Hoagland / The National

TDIC prepares to build homes in museum quarter of Saadiyat Island



Tourism Development & Investment Company, the government-owned developer of cultural and residential projects in Abu Dhabi, is preparing to build its first homes in its multibillion-dirham museum quarter on Saadiyat Island.

With Abu Dhabi’s Louvre museum scheduled to open in 2015, followed by the Zayed National Museum in 2016 and the Guggenheim museum in 2017, and a luxury shopping mall set to be developed between them, master developer TDIC said it was pressing ahead with plans to build hundreds of homes in the area.

TDIC plans to build low-rise apartments blocks along a 1.5 kilometre beachfront close to the 550-store luxury mall it is jointly developing with L Real Estate, a property development and investment fund sponsored by Louis Vuitton.

A current model, exhibited by TDIC this week, shows 12 apartment blocks of two or three storeys stretching along the beach from the Guggenheim to the new Cranleigh school campus, which is due to open next year, and the Manarat Al Saadiyat exhibition space. However, TDIC said that these designs were likely to change over the coming weeks.

The master developer said it was finalising designs for the scheme and that it intended to produce the final designs before the end of the year. It also said it expected to be developing a first phase of about 200 flats early next year.

“Our concentration today is to finish the Cultural District and all our efforts are going in that area. Work is going on at the Louvre 24 hours a day now and our aim is to keep that place alive and open. You cannot just build the museums without putting anything around it. It would just be a deserted place. So we are completing the culture district master plan by bringing in the residential to complete the area,” said Ahmed Al Fahim, the executive director of marketing, communications, sales and leasing at TDIC.

Speaking to The National at the Cityscape Global exhibition in Dubai yesterday, TDIC, which is developing the entire 27 square kilometre island, said it was also looking to sell off packages of land in the neighbourhood to sub-developers to build housing, offices and schools.

By the end of this year, TDIC plans to start offering investors 12 plots of land between the road to Manarat Al Saadiyat and the main road through the island.

“Obviously there is demand and that is growing,” Mr Al Fahim said. “We are putting in the infrastructure, we are putting in the attractions so it’s a very promising opportunity.”

The news comes just days after the property broker Asteco reported that after years of declines, house prices in the capital have finally started to recover from the 2008 market crash. It said that Abu Dhabi house prices have risen by 14 to 26 per cent over the past year, helped by an influx of government employees relocating to the capital and improved investor sentiment.

Last month, TDIC put 70 apartments at its nearby Saadiyat Beach Residences scheme on the market for prices starting at Dh1.4 million. TDIC said it had sold 64 of the recently completed apartments and was considering whether to sell or lease out the final block.

Indications of an improvement in the Abu Dhabi market will come as a relief to government-owned TDIC, which has suffered years of deepening losses.

Last year TDIC announced a Dh2.1bn loss, almost double that of the previous year, prompting the company to offload three of its completed hotel resorts to its parent company, the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority. That came on top of losses of Dh368.6m in 2008, Dh551m in 2009 and Dh1.15bn in 2010.

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Starring: Yasmine Al Massri, Clara Khoury, Kamel El Basha, Ashraf Barhoum

Rating: 4/5

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Label: Parlophone/Atlantic

Number of tracks: 10

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FFP EXPLAINED

What is Financial Fair Play?
Introduced in 2011 by Uefa, European football’s governing body, it demands that clubs live within their means. Chiefly, spend within their income and not make substantial losses.

What the rules dictate? 
The second phase of its implementation limits losses to €30 million (Dh136m) over three seasons. Extra expenditure is permitted for investment in sustainable areas (youth academies, stadium development, etc). Money provided by owners is not viewed as income. Revenue from “related parties” to those owners is assessed by Uefa's “financial control body” to be sure it is a fair value, or in line with market prices.

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Winners: Abu Dhabi Harlequins
Runners up: Bahrain

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UAE Premiership
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Name: ARDH Collective
Based: Dubai
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Sector: Sustainability
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Developer: Treyarch, Raven Software
Publisher:  Activision
Console: PlayStation 4 & 5, Windows, Xbox One & Series X/S
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"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008

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Started: 2020
 
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Based: Dubai, UAE
 
Sector: Entertainment 
 
Number of staff: 210 
 
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
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Publisher: Namco Bandai
Price: Dh199

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A lesson in simple, seasonal eating. Wedges of tomato, chunks of cucumber, thinly sliced red onion, coriander or parsley leaves, and perhaps some fresh dill are drizzled with a crushed walnut and garlic dressing. Do consider yourself warned: if you eat this salad in Georgia during the summer months, the tomatoes will be so ripe and flavourful that every tomato you eat from that day forth will taste lacklustre in comparison.

Badrijani nigvzit

A delicious vegetarian snack or starter. It consists of thinly sliced, fried then cooled aubergine smothered with a thick and creamy walnut sauce and folded or rolled. Take note, even though it seems like you should be able to pick these morsels up with your hands, they’re not as durable as they look. A knife and fork is the way to go.

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This healthy little dish (a nice antidote to the khachapuri) is usually made with steamed then chopped cabbage, spinach, beetroot or green beans, combined with walnuts, garlic and herbs to make a vegetable pâté or paste. The mix is then often formed into rounds, chilled in the fridge and topped with pomegranate seeds before being served.

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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
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Director: Vasan Bala
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If you go...

Fly from Dubai or Abu Dhabi to Chiang Mai in Thailand, via Bangkok, before taking a five-hour bus ride across the Laos border to Huay Xai. The land border crossing at Huay Xai is a well-trodden route, meaning entry is swift, though travellers should be aware of visa requirements for both countries.

Flights from Dubai start at Dh4,000 return with Emirates, while Etihad flights from Abu Dhabi start at Dh2,000. Local buses can be booked in Chiang Mai from around Dh50

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UPI facts

More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions