Nakheel’s Dragon Towers draws five bids, lowest $245m

Master developer Nakheel is assessing five proposals, with bids starting at under Dh900 million ($245 million), for the construction of Dragon Towers, its twin-building residential complex at the rapidly-expanding Dragon City community in Dubai, UAE.

Dragon Towers comprises 1,140 one- and two-bedroom apartments across two buildings directly linked to the Dragon Mart retail and trading hub. The complex will have two retail floors, four parking floors and a podium-level swimming pool, restaurant and gym.

Nakheel expects to award the contract by the end of 2017, with construction scheduled for completion in 2020, said a statement.

Dragon Towers is a key element of Dragon City, Nakheel’s 11-million-sq-ft mixed-use master development, currently best known for Dragon Mart, the world’s largest Chinese trading hub outside mainland China.

The Dragon City transformation began in 2012 with the construction of Dragon Mart 2, which opened in 2015, doubling the size of the original Dragon Mart to more than 3.5 million sq ft.

Dragon City also includes two hotels – a 251-room ibis Styles that opened in February 2016 and a 304-room Premier Inn under construction – and a 375,000-sq-ft showroom complex and car park, also under construction