FOR years, an artificial archipelago built in the shape of a world map was seen as a symbol of the excesses that brought Dubai to the brink of bankruptcy. Now, the children of a billionaire developer are seeking to revive the project with beachfront mansions starting at US$13.6 million.

Ali Sajwani, 33, and his sister Amira, 29, plan to build 24 mansions, a beach club and two helipads along with dedicated berths for boats on a 1.2 million square feet island they are calling Amali. Their father, Hussain Sajwani, is the founder of privately-held developer Damac Properties, with a net worth of US$3.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

State-owned Nakheel had finished creating The World archipelago of over 250 islands in the Persian Gulf for US$13 billion in 2008. But the developer, which also created Dubai’s famed palm tree-shaped islands, was forced to suspend work on all its projects once the credit crisis hit later that year. Tumbling prices and mounting debt at parent company Dubai World eventually led to a bailout from neighbouring Abu Dhabi.

Since then, the market’s fortunes have reversed, and the emirate is now one of the world’s best-performing property markets. Home prices, rents and sales have hit records aided by an influx of high-net-worth buyers from around the world. Mansion sales soared with Dubai recording 431 transactions of homes worth at least US$10 million in 2023, which was the most of any city on the planet, according to Knight Frank’s data.

The boom has helped Dubai revive projects that had lain dormant for nearly 15 years. Over the past few months, developments on Palm Jebel Ali, the largest of the city’s famous palm-shaped artificial islands, and along with projects on Deira islands have drawn throngs of buyers – some of them queueing up for US$5 million homes.

Challenging project

Amali island, named after the siblings’ firm, will be formed by merging the Uruguay and Sao Paolo islands that they purchased from the secondary market. Of the 24 planned mansions, 19 have already been sold, Ali Sajwani said.

A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU

Tuesday, 12 pm

Property Insights

Get an exclusive analysis of real estate and property news in Singapore and beyond.

Sign Up

Developing The World islands will be challenging. The site can only be reached only via a 15-minute boat ride from the city, and basic infrastructure such as water and electricity is not readily available. It will also be a costly process since the developer will have to undertake dredging work, perform soil and marine improvement and build an underwater wall around the island to maintain the beaches for the customer, Sajwani said.

The firm’s work on developing a resort in the Maldives that will be managed by Mandarin Oriental Hotel has prepared them for the task, he said.

“In the past, there was plenty of beachfront land available within the city,” Sajwani said. “Today, Dubai’s beachfront has sort of been depleted and The World islands is one of the last projects where you have pristine beaches and crystal clear waters, and that’s what encouraged us to go and develop on the islands.”

Mansions will start from 11,000 square feet and go all the way to 35,000 square feet and offer unobstructed views of the sea and the city’s iconic skyline.

Troubled history

The Sajwani siblings are not the first to develop on the archipelago, where islands are named after countries and cities even though the land masses themselves do not resemble the shapes of those locations.

Anantara Hotels & Resorts opened a 70-room property on the South American section of the archipelago in 2022 and a beach club was opened on Lebanon island before that. But the project largely remained abandoned, a reminder of Dubai’s troubled past when a speculative frenzy led to one of the world’s worst real estate crashes.

Austria’s Kleindienst Group was among the first to start work on the island with a project known as the Heart of Europe over a decade ago. The project was plagued by delays over the years, but the developer managed to finally open its Cote d’Azur Monaco Hotel earlier this year. BLOOMBERG