30,000 Workers on Site as Dubai's $1.4B Project Rises

Construction is under way on Water Gardens, a four-building development in Dubai led by H&H Development, with 30,000 workers already on site. The project, which combines two hotels, residential properties and office towers, is scheduled for completion before the end of 2028, Bloomberg reported. Its delivery timeline now sits at the centre of a broader test of whether Dubai’s building pipeline can keep moving while the property market absorbs the shock of the Gulf war.

The operational picture on the ground is detailed. Beyond the two hotels, the development includes another hotel with 154 rooms and 40 residences. Eden House, a residential building of 132 apartments, is under construction and will be retained as a rental-income asset rather than sold. A 12-storey office tower will add 246,737 square feet of Grade A office space, alongside a members’ club, according to Miltos Bossinis, chief executive officer of H&H. Most of the development will be leased and operated rather than sold, chairman Shahab Lutfi said, a model that ties the project’s returns to long-term management of the assets rather than one-off sales.

Execution is proceeding despite a sharp slowdown in transactions. H&H’s sales between March and September fell at least 50% from the same period a year earlier, according to the company’s internal assessment, which Lutfi shared with Bloomberg. “I’d comfortably say there is a 50% drop at least, if not more, but that’s expected,” he said. Even so, sales are continuing. Last week the developer sold two Four Seasons-branded residences in the new district for 35 million dirhams ($9.5 million) and 45 million dirhams respectively. About 85% of the branded residences in the development have been sold, at prices exceeding 8,000 dirhams per square foot, among the highest rates in the area.

The slowdown traces back to weaker demand from foreign investors following Iranian attacks on the United Arab Emirates at the start of the Gulf war. Transaction volumes have declined, though property prices and rents have largely held firm, with values recording only marginal declines. “There are cycles in every industry and Dubai always comes out of these cycles much stronger,” Lutfi said. “We don’t look at it on a short terms basis and we’ve managed our financials pretty well.” He co-founded H&H with Mohamed bin Hadi Al Hussaini, the UAE’s Minister of State for Financial Affairs. On pricing, he noted the market has not seen widespread selling pressure or steep reductions: “it’s not like people are running away or reducing the sales price drastically. If you’re lucky, you might get 4% or 5% discount on some projects, not in ours, but around the city.”

Meanwhile, the project sits within Dubai’s effort to deepen its position as an international financial and business centre, building on the established Dubai International Financial Centre. DIFC, the leading financial centre serving the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, has spent more than 22 years facilitating trade and investment flows across a region of more than 77 countries, home to about 3.8 billion people with estimated gross domestic product of $11.2 trillion, and connects those markets with economies in Asia, Europe and the Americas. In 2025 it recorded 8,844 active companies and a workforce of 50,200 professionals, while its artificial intelligence, fintech and innovation community grew to 1,677 companies. Expansion accelerated in 2026 with the launch of DIFC Zabeel District, described by DIFC as the region’s most extensive demand-led expansion of a financial centre, and Dubai climbed to seventh place globally in the Global Financial Centres Index, its highest-ever ranking. By the end of June, DIFC had crossed the 10,000-company milestone for the first time, reaching 10,018 active registered companies, with its AI, fintech and innovation community at 1,933 firms.

Delivery, however, is getting more expensive. The war is pushing up prices for contractors and construction materials in the region and elsewhere, and Lutfi said material costs had risen by about 15%. That cost pressure adds to the execution challenges facing developers even as demand for office space remains firm amid limited supply. ET Bureau reported in August that lingering geopolitical tensions had slowed big-ticket commercial property transactions in Dubai. Anarock’s data shows Dubai recorded 2,844 commercial property transactions in the April-June quarter, compared with 2,875 a year earlier, while the value of those deals fell 21% year-on-year to 24.49 billion dirhams from 31.15 billion dirhams, indicating the slowdown was more pronounced in value than in volumes. For H&H, the task now is to carry Water Gardens to its 2028 completion on a site where work has not stopped, even as the wider market recalibrates around it.