By Bloomberg
The Tiger Woods Dubai golf course and luxury-home complex will be completed as planned after being pushed months behind schedule by the sheikhdom’s property slump, its developer said.
“We haven’t decided yet on a date for its completion or delivery to the market, but the project is ongoing,” Dubai Properties Group Chief Executive Officer Khalid Al Malik said in an interview. Work on the course, designed by Woods and originally due to be finished by September 2009, has gotten as far as the eighth hole, he said.
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Plans for the 55 million-square-foot (5.1 million-square-metre) Tiger Woods Dubai include 287 luxury villas and mansions, a boutique hotel and a clubhouse. Designs for the villas are being completed before construction starts, Al Malik said.
Residential projects worth $15bn were either canceled or put on hold in Dubai last year as developers tried to restrict supply to stem price declines. Jones Lang LaSalle said on Jan. 25. Dubai went from being the best-performing property market of the 46 monitored by Knight Frank to the worst within a year after the global credit crisis hurt investment and speculators left the market.
The development is a partnership between Tiger Woods Design and Tatweer, which is now a part of Dubai Properties Group. Tiger Woods has a minority stake in the project, which he visits two or three times a year, the CEO said in the interview last week. Representatives from his Windermere, Florida-based design firm visit more frequently, Al Malik said.
Government-owned Dubai Properties has no plans to cut its ties to the golfer, the CEO said. Woods took an indefinite leave from competition after admitting to marital infidelity. AT&T Inc. and Accenture Plc ended their sponsorship deals with Woods, while Procter & Gamble Co. said it would phase him out of its Gillette TV and print ads.
Al Malik said he doesn’t believe the association with Woods and his personal life has hurt the project. “We haven’t experienced any change,” he said.
In November 2007, the developer said Woods planned to build a 16,500-square-foot mansion overlooking the golf course that would include a gym, theater, library and pool. Abdulla Al Gurg, who managed the project at the time, said villas and mansions were selling for $12m to $23m.
“Part of the project is sold and the other part will go to the market once it’s completed because we believe it’s better to do it then,” Al Malik said. “We are moving on with that plan and we are continuing the project without a doubt.”
Dubai Properties Group, which recently merged with Tatweer Dubai and Sama Dubai, holds the emirate’s biggest land bank. The developer has 5 billion-square-feet of land, 3 billion of which are for Dubailand, a $7.5bn attraction twice the size of Walt Disney World in Florida.
The three real-estate units of Dubai Holding were combined ahead of plans to merge with the United Arab Emirates’ biggest developer, Emaar Properties. Emaar said on Dec. 10 that it abandoned the merger because the transaction was no longer “economically viable.”
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