Dh361m to Dh182m price drop — but will Marina 101’s hotel sell?

Another auction bid initiated with project verging on completion

The hotel part of the unfinished Dh1 billion, 100-storey skyscraper Marina 101 in Dubai Marina is up for auction again – just months after getting no bids for three earlier attempts at trying to find a buyer. The minimum bid price this time? All of Dh182 million for a project located in one of the most prestigious locations in the city.

The price tag is a sharp climb down from the Dh361 million that the seller was asking for the hotel, spread over the ground level plus 32 storeys, in May last. Why anyone would want to slash bid prices to this extent at a time when property values in Dubai are firming up is anyone’s guess. Whether this sharply revised price is enough to finally land a buyer is the other big question.

The Marina 101 tower was launched in mid-2005 as one of the most prestigious private developer-owned offplan projects in Dubai at the time. On the sales side, it was an instant success – but when it came to the construction, the tower stumbled from one crisis to another.

In 2019, construction was halted after the developer, Sheffield Real Estate, racked up heavy debts and could not meet its repayment obligations to its banks, with India’s Bank of Baroda being the main lender. Market sources say the auction for the hotel component could only have been initiated by the lenders.

“Why can’t they wait for a few more months and let the project finish?” queries one investor in the tower.

When work stalled in 2019, the project had gone past the 97 per cent completion stage. Then came the nerve-wracking phase when apartment owners kept waiting for someone to take it past the finish line. Finally, a few weeks ago, work re-started on the 3 per cent that was left to do. According to construction industry sources, most of the sub-contracts should be in place within days.

“For any investor, value will come from buying the whole tower and not just one part of it,” said a consultant. “Slashing the minimum bid from Dh361 million to Dh182 million in five months will not inspire confidence.”

Finally, a few weeks ago, work resumed on the 3 per cent left to do. Most sub-contracts should happen within days, sources suggest.