The Palm to get a 100-metre high residential project

Dubai: The Palm Jumeirah, Dubai’s priciest freehold residential destination, is to have its first 100-metre high development, courtesy of a joint venture project between Omniyat Properties and the construction major Drake & Scull International. Sales of the super-luxury units — only 90 will be there and with floor areas between 2,500 square feet and a substantial 20,000 square feet — will be done in the third quarter and that too by-invitation only.

“Existing tall structures on the Palm tend to be around 50-52 metres and from the moment we acquired the plot with Drake & Scull the plan was to create a signature development,” said Mark Phoenix, Managing Director at Omniyat. “Given the significant resources the project and its design entails, it was always felt having a strategic partner made more sense than doing it alone. Drake & Scull brings in financial strength and construction expertise to the project.”

Construction of the project — located on a plot near the Viceroy Hotel — should be complete by 2017. (In 2005, a Trump Tower was announced for the Palm which would have been more than 250 metres high. But it was cancelled during the subsequent downturn.)

Details of the pricing of the Omniyat-D&S units will only be revealed closer to the launch day. A model will be on display at the Omniyat stand in Cityscape. A trio of global firms — Tokyo-headquartered Super Potato, Lebanon’s Vladimir and New York-based architects Soma — have already been signed up.