British Architect, Lord Norman Foster, along with Masdar, a UAE energy initiative, unveiled plans for a carbon-neutral city in the desert of Abu Dhabi last week. Foster & Partners architects will design the car-free city which will eventually house 50,000 people.

Masdar’s research institute, which was founded in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will be located in the 6.5 sq km development and aims to turn the city into an alternative energy cluster for 1,500 businesses.

Sultan al-Jaber, Masdar’s chief executive, said “Masdar City will become the world’s hub for future energy - By taking sustainable development and living to a new level, it will lead the world in understanding how all future cities should be built.”

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Plans are proceeding , despite vehement opposition in France, to build a Louvre in Abu Dhabi. The building will, for want of a better word be, “unusual.”-A shallow dome that looks rather like an escapee from some low-budget 60’s science fiction movie. With geometric openings causing patterns of light to bounce around the interior, I can almost see the likes of Matisse and Van Gogh turning in their graves.

No doubt, I am not the only one to see the irony of the whole situation, and as I discussed in “Cultural Oases in Abu Dhabi part one,” the Guggenheim seems to have come to some arrangement whereby none of the works on display in their museum outpost will “offend local sensibilities,” and I wonder if the Louvre has come to the same arrangement. If so, I have the same question to pose: “Dude, like what are you gonna hang on the wall, man?”

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The planned Guggenheim museum in Abu Dhabi hit the headlines again recently, with New York Magazine’s art columnist Jerry Saltz, suggesting that Thomas Krens, the director of the Guggenheim foundation is “reckless, destructive, myopic, and misguided.”

As part of their drive to convince the rest of the world of their cultural sophistication, the Abu Dhabi authorities are planning a branch of the Guggenheim museum on Saadiyat island. The museum building, designed by internationally acclaimed architect Frank Gehry, will dwarf Bilbao’s version, and at a planned 300,000 sq ft, will be the largest Guggenheim museum.

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Approached from the sea Abu Dhabi’s densely packed high rise buildings give the impression that can grow no further but the reality is that planned expansion will increase the city’s area and population (currently about 1.8m) over the next few years.

Where to Look

The modern city of Abu Dhabi only dates back to the sixties and it is still a city trying to establish and nurture its character and create differentiation between neighbourhoods. The town plan on Abu Dhabi island conforms to a grid pattern with very high density building (20 storeys is normal) along the shoreline (The Corniche). New developments on other islands, some of them man-made, and the mainland are making great efforts to distinguish themselves with cultural features (Saadiyat Island’s Guggenheim Museum) or resort style attractions as with Reem Island or Al Raha beach. However, in several cases these developments are only at the planning stage, all-be-it far advanced.

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Lacking the huge natural resources of Abu Dhabi or the world class infrastructure of Dubai, the smaller members of the United Arab Emirates do have developmental advantages of their own in terms of geographic location and tourist potential.

Ras al Khaimah (population 205,000), the northernmost of the emirates, close by the Omani enclave, reported investment of Dh 100bn in 2006 (approximately $25bn) with the tourism and real estate sectors being particularly active. However, the emirate’s economic plans place industrial development in the key position.

Fujairah (pop. 127,000) has the advantage of being the only UAE port outside the Persian Gulf. Strategic facilities are being constructed to take advantage of this, anticipating any military or naval action that could close the Straits of Hormuz at the mouth of the gulf. These include an oil pipeline from Abu Dhabi and a liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage hub.The latter is a project being undertaken by Dubai Multi Commodities Centre in conjunction with LNG Impel, part of Galveston LNG of Canada. The go-ahead for this important project, representing a capital outlay of Dh 8bn, is contingent on arrangements for Qatar to use the facility. The Fujairah authorities have plans to reclaim two square km from the Arabian Sea for the project.

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Finally got hold of a quality rotating tower video. This is an interesting piece from CNBC on good old Dubai featuring the rotating tower in Jumeirah Village….it’s a US$350m off plan 68-storey hotel condo & office tower designed by Italian architect David Fisher. Each floor individually rotates 360 degrees, constantly changing the shape of the building.

Abu Dhabi, an obscure – yet substantial – oil producer in the Middle East is seeking to take the world by storm in it’s largest up scale venture.

The precedent has already been set by it’s neighbouring city, Dubai, which became a global commercial and tourist hub when it’s oil supply began running low creating a necessity for wealth replacement. Part of Dubai’s step to recovery included the $1 billion Burj Al Arab hotel, looser land sales laws, and what will become the world’s tallest building among other things. Although many believe that Dubai was built too quickly and urgently, it continues to be a stronghold in the Middle East and is giving Abu Dhabi a good run for its money.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahyan, the 46-year-old crown prince of Abu Dhabi, has high hopes of putting his little city on the world map. Considered the richest city in the world, each of Abu Dhabi’s 420,000 citizens are worth $17 million. Over $1 trillion is invested worldwide by this one city alone, and an unfathomable amount of money is being put right back into its soil.

Etihad Airways, one of Abu Dhabi’s first projects along with its $6.8 billion airport expansion, included an $8 billion order with Airbus. Although it covers all major destinations in the globe, the successful airline industry of Dubai makes Abu Dhabi’s seem pointless and so far apparently unprofitable. The immaculate Emirates Palace hotel was soon to follow with suites costing between $1,000 and $10,000-per-night. The practicality of the hotel is debatable as it seems to serve as a landmark rather than a place of lodging. However, with popularity being the primary goal for this city, it serves it’s purpose well.

The most crucial change in Abu Dhabi has been the relaxing of it’s property ownership and selling laws to allow foreigners 99-year leaseholds and giving citizens the ability to sell land. Native investors that have settled in Dubai are now returning to their home city in a bid not to miss this ‘gold rush’.

Abu Dhabi’s most recent endeavour is Saadiyat Island (meaning island of happiness in Arabic), a glowing $30 billion island with two golf courses, 29 hotels and enough housing accommodation for 150,000 people. Numerous other features on the island make it the ideal tourist destination.

Will the world notice Abu Dhabi’s gigantic strides in creating an empire of wealth? Only time will tell, and perhaps one day Abu Dhabi will be to the Arabia what Tokyo is to Japan. Read more on CNNMoney.

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We start the international property news beat on a light note with a post from Curbed L.A’s Celebrity Real Estate Wrap on Celebs (Tom Jones, Rudolph Velentino & Kirk Kerkon) moving homes.

And the major headlines -

• Invesco plans to launch a US$300 million property fund to invest in China and Japan due to the surging prices of Asia’s property markets [China Knowledge]
• Foreigners buy $450 million in Turkish real estate shares [Turkish Daily News]
• Asian Bubbles Defy Higher Rates; Nations Try Other Tools [Blooomberg]
• China plans more measures to cool property market in H1 [Forbes]
• Related Group to invest $1 Billion Mexico Real Estate for US second home buyers [Bloomberg]
• USA: Philadelphia - Commercial Real estate investment trusts strong investment vehicle in 2007 [Investment News]
• UK Housing market ’strong in 2006′ with growth rates exceding all other major European economies [BBC]
• UK: One in every five home buyers in Britain is now a Polish immigrant [First Rung]
• Abu Dhabi realty sales to top $2.5bn this year [AME Info]

What a different a couple of years can make in the Gulf. From a standing start the emirate of Abu Dhabi now has more than $100 billion of real estate projects in hand.

Not surprisingly interest in these development projects is huge, and the third edition of the annual Abu Dhabi Real Estate and Investment Show - which will be held at the International Exhibition Centre in Abu Dhabi from March 21-24 - is set to be the biggest yet with 6,500 square metres of exhibition space.

To date Abu Dhabi projects have been concentrated in the hands of six major local developers - Sorouh Real Estate, Aldar Properties, Al Qudra Holdings, Tamouh Investments, Al Rayan Investments and Hydra Properties, and have been large scale.

The $100 billion total includes the $40 billion Yas Island, $27 billion Saadiyat Island, $15 billion Al Raha Beach, $9 billion Danet Abu Dhabi, $8 billion Najmat Abu Dhabi, $3 billion Shams Abu Dhabi and $2 billion Capital Centre.

Population to double
Middle East real estate investment advisor RSP Group estimates that 250,000 new housing units will be required in the UAE capital to accommodate a doubling of the local population to two million over the next decade.

But building on this scale is going to require a huge mobilization of contractors and building materials at a time when the boom in neighboring Dubai has severely stretched the available capacity leading to construction delays and quality issues.

However, Abu Dhabi’s political will and financial strength is not to be underestimated. This is not a place noted for oratory or big statements. Rather there is a quiet commitment to get on with the job, and Abu Dhabi surprised everybody by getting its real estate law in place before Dubai.

There is also a depth of wealth in Abu Dhabi that is possibly unmatched by any city in the world. Ten per cent of the world’s oil, extractable at the lowest global costs and huge gas reserves; an investment fund that is rumored to be valued at $500 billion; and an oil and gas infrastructure that is both established and paid for, unlike say Qatar which is in the process of making huge investments with borrowed capital.

Political stability
The emirate is also noted for its political stability and the popular regime established by Sheikh Zayed, the first president of the UAE, which is now being continued by his son Sheikh Khalifa who has gathered a strong group of young technocrats around him.

This energetic collection of young nationals is behind a new strategy for economic growth concentrating on areas where cheap energy sources provide a comparative advantage, as well as the expansion of the existing oil and gas facilities.

Given the likely continued bull market for energy due to demand from new economies like China and India, Abu Dhabi’s future looks particularly bright, and the $100 billion in new real estate projects should be seen in this context, although clearly not without challenges for those involved.

Source: AME Info