The children of a billionaire Dubai property developer have come up with a plan to revive the emirate’s abandoned “World Islands.”
Ali and Amira Sajwani have teamed up to launch Amali Island, a property development that aims to revive the troubled project by building 24 mansions, a beach club, and twin helipads.
Nineteen of the 24 beachfront villas have already been sold, and the remainder are selling for upwards of $13.6 million, Ali Sajwani previously told Bloomberg.
One of the villas yet to be sold has seven bedrooms across 22,500 square feet on a plot of 56,000 square feet.
The siblings’ father, Hussain Sajwani, is one of the United Arab Emirates’ richest people with a fortune worth more than $5 billion, according to Forbes.
His children aim to regenerate Dubai’s “The World” archipelago — some 300 artificial islands in the shape of a world map.
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State-backed developer Nakheel Properties started building the project in 2003, but the 2008 financial crisis cut it short. Many of the islands were then abandoned.
The Amali project will be formed by joining up the islands that were supposed to represent Uruguay and São Paulo, per Bloomberg.
The elder Sajwani is the chairman of the luxury real-estate developer Damac Properties, which he founded in 2002, and is known in the West for his close business ties to Donald Trump.
Damac and Trump teamed up in 2013 to build a Trump-branded, Tiger Woods-designed golf course.
Sajwani has also been vocal in his support for the ex-President’s trade war with China, remarking in a 2018 interview that he felt “sympathetic” toward Washington in its battle with Beijing.
“We have signed an agreement with the Trump Organization. We’re very, very happy with them — their service and their quality,” he told Bloomberg. “Without the organization, we would never have been able to build our golf courses.”
The World was less successful than the Palm Jumeirah artificial islands project, which now boasts thousands of homes and other buildings.
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