Etihad Towers redefining 'high-end' with The Avenue

I have not spent a lot of time in luxury hotel lobbies. I usually waste my holidays rocking up in ramshackle towns, straining under the weight of a backpack and in no mood to haggle for cheap accommodation - but doing so anyway.

The cheaper the accommodation, the more money that can be spent on other holiday frivolities.

But despite my penchant for scrimping abroad, I live in the UAE, where luxury hotels are on every corner - so I know a good lobby when I walk into one.

And the lobby at the Jumeirah-run new hotel at Etihad Towers is exceptional. One side is entirely glass and majestically looks out on to a beach and the Gulf.

The Etihad Towers complex is also to launch a new luxury retail destination called The Avenue, and if the hotel lobby is anything to go by, the shopping will be big ticket, or what marketeers in the retail industry now call "ultra-high end", which is mainly stuff that is bought by "ultra-high-net-worth individuals", who sound like European football hooligans with a lot of extra cash for flares and knuckledusters.

Anyway, the developer, the Sheikh Suroor Projects Department, is being pretty coy about when The Avenue will be opened to the public, merely saying in "the coming months" after launching Etihad Towers hotel and apartments in December last year.

It can take three to five months for some retailers just to fit out a store, but these will be small so it should not take too long.

We can safely say that Etihad Towers is going to be the next big luxury shopping district in Abu Dhabi, even with the huge numbers of malls to be launched this year and next.

About 40 high-end brands, among them Versace, Bulgari, Rolex, Piaget and Van Cleef & Arpels, have signed up to the Etihad Towers complex on the Corniche.

The Avenue will be perfect if you forget an anniversary and need to do some grovelling.

rjones@thenational.ae