Pearl-Qatar sees residential surge

Badr al-Meer: United Development Company’s acting CEO.

By Salman Siddiqui/Staff Reporter

The Pearl-Qatar is expected to see a “drastic” rise of about 45% in residency occupancy levels  this year, a top official said yesterday.

Badr al-Meer, the acting chief executive officer of United Development Company, which is developing The Pearl-Qatar project, estimated the total number of residents now living at the man-made island at around 9,000.

“We are talking about between 8,000 and 9,000 residents at the Pearl. This number will go up drastically by the second or third quarter of this year,” al-Meer said, while answering questions at a press conference yesterday.

The  official said that this number of residents was “between 43 to 45%” of the total capacity currently available at the Pearl.

He said the reason why he was confident that there would be a drastic rise this year was because he was sure that the project would meet its deadlines and new areas of the Pearl were nearing completion.

He revealed that “Medina Centrale”, the town centre of The Pearl-Qatar, was already complete.

“We are waiting for final approval of it from the Civil Defence by the first quarter (of this year).”  This, in turn, will increase between 1,100-1,200 more units at the Pearl.

Further, he said the multi-billion dollar project that began in 2004 was at an advanced stage, where 60% of it was either completed and sold or under-construction or under-preparation for construction.

“If you go around Porto Arabia Towers (at The Pearl-Qatar), you will find 18 or 19 towers complete, while 10 other towers are still under construction and two plots still to be sold.

“The same situation is for Viva Bahriya Towers where four towers have been completed and residents have moved in. Other parts of it are still under-construction,” he said.

The Pearl-Qatar in Doha is an artificial island spanning nearly 4mn square metres. It is the first land in Qatar to be available for freehold ownership by foreign nationals.

Once fully completed, The Pearl-Qatar will create over 32km of new coastline, for use as a residential estate with an expected 15,000 dwellings and 45,000 residents by 2015.

Developed by United Development Company and planned by architecture and design firm Callison, the island is located 350m  offshore of Doha’s West Bay Lagoon area.