Previously this month the property owners were ready to invest a few million in order to resolve the problem of the construction of skyscraper Dubai Marina 101. But it also failed to bring the desired results to the owners.
With almost 300 hotel rooms at the Dubai skyscraper Marina 101 will not be selling……. At least for now.
It was a week ago these units were available to be purchased, with the reserve price set at Dh361.45 million. The deadline for bid submission finished by evening on Thursday (May 27) – and without getting any interest at all. Despite the fact that no official word has been given about going in for the auction, it is sure that creditor banks to the Marina 101 project – including India’s Bank of Baroda – had set the hotel units available to be purchased.
The 10-store tower had halted project action in 2019 on issues related to the developer’s debt burden, assessed at Dh290 million or more or Dh400 million or more, depending on competing versions. But when the project was halted, the Dh1 billion development was at the 97.3 percent mark.
“It’s not been made clear as to why Bank of Baroda or the other banks wanted to go ahead with the auction,” said an industry source who had in the recent past tried to work out a solution that would have seen the project being taken over by a third-party investor-developer. “This was a piecemeal offering – when the only real benefit any investor coming in now would be to acquire the whole project, not just the hotel part.”
Piecemeal, it is
Placed for auction was the ground in addition to 32 stories, which was the region marked for what should have been a hotel when Marina 101 was launched in 2005. (Around then, it was Hard Rock that was to operate the hotel.)
Investors scrambling
The damp squib reaction to the hotel auction attempt actually leaves property investors in the other 68 stories with no reasonable answer for what’s on the horizon. A significant number of them have paid 90% or the entirety of the property estimation on their multi-million dirham apartments.
“Bank of Baroda is not talking to us – they set up the hotel units for auction because they want to cut their losses and exit,” said one property owner. “This is not how it should be done – us property owners in Marina 101 are willing to finance the project costs needed to finish the balance 2.7 percent.
“We will definitely take this up with the concerned authorities in Dubai. We believe we have the funds to make it happen.”