Developer Sobha eyeing huge Dubai project, chairman says

Sobha Group is planning another “huge” project in Dubai, which will be bigger than the Dh21 billion, 400,000 hectare Mohammed Bin Rashid City District One project, said the company’s founder and chairman PNC Menon.

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Sobha Group is planning another “huge” project in Dubai, which will be bigger than the Dh21 billion, 400,000 hectare Mohammed Bin Rashid City District One project, said the company’s founder and chairman PNC Menon.

“We shall be announcing it within the next three to four months. It is in Dubai,” he told The National. “The size is huge. It’s bigger than District One. We should hopefully announce it in the early part of January. That’s what we are aiming for.”

Sobha Group is currently building District One in Mohammed Bin Rashid City in a joint venture with the Meydan Group. It is also developing its own Dh14.7bn Sobha Hartland project on a neighbouring site fronting Al Khail Road. In April this year, the developer also announced that it will undertake a joint venture with the Umm Al Quwain government to build a Dh25bn project on Al Sinniyah Island.

Mr Menon said that with the addition of the fourth project in Dubai “we should be busy for the next 10-12 years in the UAE”.

The company also has a significant presence in India, where it has developed projects in nine cities and has a listed entity on the Bombay Stock Exchange with a market capitalisation of Dh1.6bn.

“We are the number one brand of India. Hopefully, because we are new here, in another three or four years we are going to see where we stand in terms of brand identity. I feel that it will take by 2019/2020 for us to be a known brand in terms of completions.

“I believe that brand building is nothing but delivery on a consistent basis. That creates your brand. And we expect that since we are delivering stuff by the end of this year, by 2018 we expect that we will have phase one and phase two of our District One building delivered. That will create our brand.”

Sobha Group recently launched 24 townhouses along the Dubai Canal at Sobha Hartland, where it is currently on site with its first 46 villas and 361 apartments.

In total, the site will contain 5,800 units - 161 of which will be villas and townhouses with the remainder being apartments. Most will be developed directly by Sobha, but the site also contains some plots for third-party developers.

mfahy@thenational.ae