Dubai Creek Harbour (The Lagoons)

Dubai Creek Harbour is Emaar's second Downtown, built on the creek where it widens into the wildlife sanctuary, with the old city on one side of the water and the flamingos on the other. It was launched around a tower that was to be the tallest in the world, and the tower is still a promise, but the district it was meant to anchor has been built anyway: an island of apartment towers on a promenade, a marina, a beach on the creek, and a skyline that looks back at the Burj Khalifa from across the water.

The place

The district sits on the creek's eastern bank, reached from Ras Al Khor Road and Nad Al Hamar Road, with the Ras Al Khor sanctuary on its doorstep and the airport a short drive away. The first phase, the Island District, is a cluster of towers around a marina and a promenade; later phases have spread along the bank towards the creek beach and the sanctuary, with lower buildings and more green between them.

The promenade is the district's living room: cafes and restaurants along the water, the marina, the views of the Downtown skyline and, in the cooler months, the crowds that come for them. The creek beach, a stretch of sand on the water with pools and lawns behind it, gives the district something no other inland community has.

The tower for which the district was drawn remains a foundation and a promise. Its site sits at the district's centre, the developer has revised the plan more than once, and the skyline the district was meant to have is still to come. The district has not waited: the towers around the site are full, and the tower's absence is a fact of the view rather than of daily life.

What you get

Apartments, from studios to large penthouses, almost all of them new and all of them by one developer, which gives the district a consistency the older communities lack. The Island District's towers are the settled core; the later phases along the bank are newer and, in places, still handing over. Hotel-branded residences sit alongside the ordinary towers.

Views are the currency: the skyline across the water, the sanctuary, the marina, or the buildings behind. A flat facing the creek and the same layout facing inland are different markets, and the register records the gap.

Getting around

Residents drive. Ras Al Khor Road reaches Downtown and Business Bay quickly outside the peak, the airport is one of the shortest runs of any residential district in the city, and the Marina is a long way. A Metro line has been planned to reach the district and buses serve it now; the tram-like connection along the promenade is for pleasure, not commuting. Inside the district the promenade and the bridges make it one of the more walkable places in Dubai.

Day to day

The promenade and the marina carry the cafes and restaurants, the Island District's podiums the supermarket and the daily shops, and a larger retail centre has been growing along the bank. The creek beach and the parks carry the weekends, and the sanctuary's flamingos are a short walk from most doors. There are nurseries inside the district; schools are a drive away in Nad Al Sheba, Al Jaddaf and along the creek, and families here count on the car for the school run.

Who it suits

People who want a new apartment with a view and a promenade, close to the airport and to Downtown without paying Downtown's prices. Professionals who fly often. Families who prefer a large new flat to an old villa. Investors, for whom the district's uniform new stock and steady handovers make it one of the busier resale and letting markets in the city.

It suits people less well who work at the Marina end of the city, who want a house with a garden, or who want a finished district: the promise of the tower and the phases still handing over mean cranes for some years yet.

Buying and renting here

The register separates two markets here and this page keeps them apart. The Island District and the earlier towers trade as ordinary resales of finished flats, and their records are deep. The later phases trade largely as off-plan resales, where a launch price for a tower handing over in a few years says nothing about a finished flat's worth today. Buyers of finished flats should read the building's own page for what its layouts actually fetched; buyers off-plan should know the handover date and the payment plan remaining.

Service charges are set by the developer's community management and vary by tower. For tenants, the official index caps a renewal while a new lease follows the market, and the district's furnished lets sit alongside the ordinary leases.

Buildings to know

The Island District's towers, the harbour-view and creek-facing buildings around the marina, are where the district's resales began and remain its most traded. The hotel-branded residences on the promenade and the newer towers along the bank towards the beach are its premium end. The table below shows where the district's sales are actually happening, and every building has its own page.