Al Jaddaf

Al Jaddaf is the old dhow-building shore of the creek turned into a district of new apartment buildings, ten minutes from Downtown and ten from the airport, with a Metro station at its edge and prices that belong to the far suburbs. It is one of the city's quiet bargains, and the people who have found it tend to have been looking for something else. The name most likely means "the rower", from the verb to row, for the dhow yard that was here.

The place

The district lies on the creek's southern bank between Bur Dubai and the airport, opposite Festival City, with the dhow yards still working at its waterline. The waterfront has been rebuilt as a promenade with a park, an arts centre and a set of residential and hotel buildings looking across the water; behind it, the district's inland streets have filled with mid-rise apartment buildings from a wide range of developers. Culture Village, the developer-built quarter along the water with its own guide, and Dubai Healthcare City are its immediate neighbours.

It helps to separate the district from Culture Village, the developer-built quarter along the water with its own guide, whose hotel, towers and canal-side buildings are the polished end of the same shore. Al Jaddaf proper is the working district behind and beside it: the boatyards, the hospitals, the school, and the inland streets of new apartment blocks that have filled in over the last few years.

The mix is the district's character: hospitals and clinics, hotels, a school, new apartment blocks, the old boatyards and, along the creek, a public waterfront that most of the city has not yet noticed.

What you get

Apartments in mid-rise buildings, most of them recent, from studios to family layouts, with the creek-facing buildings at the top of the market and the inland streets carrying the volume. Developers range from the city's largest to the smallest, and the buildings differ accordingly in finish, management and parking. There are no villas and few towers of real height.

The waterfront buildings sell the view across the creek to Festival City and the old city; the inland buildings sell price and position.

Getting around

The Metro's Green Line stops at the district's edge and at the creek, which makes this one of the few affordable districts with a real station in walking distance of many homes. By road, Al Khail Road and the Oud Metha corridor reach Downtown, Business Bay, the airport and the old city in short runs, and the creek crossings connect to Deira and Festival City. The Marina is far. Traffic on the district's approaches is heavy at the peak; inside it the streets are quieter than the location suggests.

Two stations serve it, one on the inland side and one at the creek, and between them most of the district's homes are within a reasonable walk of a train. That is rare in Dubai at any price and rarer at these, and it is the single fact that most explains the district's rise.

Day to day

The waterfront carries the district's pleasures: the promenade, the park, the arts centre and the hotels' restaurants. The inland streets carry supermarkets, pharmacies, cafes and the services of a working district, and Festival City's mall is across the creek by car. The district has a well-regarded international school inside it and more in Healthcare City and the older districts nearby, with nurseries in the residential blocks. The hospitals next door are a convenience the rest of the city drives to.

Who it suits

People who work in the old city, the airport, Healthcare City or Downtown and want a new flat within a short run of all of them at a price the newer suburbs charge for the commute. Families who value the school and the hospitals. Investors who want central yields without central prices, and who have made the district one of the busier letting markets on this side of the creek.

It suits people less well who want a beach, a villa, or the polish of the developer-built districts; this is a district still finding its shape.

Buying and renting here

Because the district's buildings span so many developers, the register matters here more than the address: the tables on this page and the building pages beneath it show what each building's layouts actually fetched, and the gap between the creek-facing buildings, the well-run inland ones and the rest is visible in those prices. Buyers should look at the owners' association, the service charge and the parking allocation, which vary widely. Off-plan launches are frequent on the inland plots and are kept apart from resales here.

For tenants, the official index caps a renewal while a new lease follows the market, and the district's rents have risen as the city has discovered it.

Buildings to know

The waterfront's residential buildings along the promenade are the district's premium end; the mid-rise blocks on the inland streets, several by the city's volume developers, are where most of its homes are and where most of its sales happen. The table below shows which are trading now, and every building has its own page with every recorded price.