The boss of a top Dubai real estate agency has defended the company’s use of images of the abandoned Dubai Creek Tower project to lure investors into buying other properties.
Yesterday, Arabian Business revealed that Fam Properties is among a group of agents using the images on property listing websites.
Advertisements promise “panoramic” and “theatrical” views of the Emaar tower, but the project has remained undeveloped for over two years.
In a statement, Fam Properties CEO Firas Al Msaddi said: “All these images are provided by private sellers who have absolute faith in the master community of Dubai Creek Harbour. Our agents are 100 percent in compliance with the marketing agreements with private sellers and landlords of the Creek Harbour community.”
The tower project – by UAE real estate giant Emaar – was suspended in 2020, with no indication of it going ahead two years later. Although no official announcement has been made about the fate of the ambitious development, Emaar has removed all mentions and rendered images of the tower on its website.
A Reuters report in 2020 said the developer had to suspend work on the tower, as well as on the surrounding residential projects, as Emaar took major blows from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Later that year, Emaar’s founder and then chairman Mohamed Alabbar had confirmed they halted new developments.
“We don’t build anymore. The government entities decided to stop new developments almost a year back, but Covid definitely put the brakes on,” he said at the time, as quoted by Bloomberg.
However, Al Msaddi – who won a real estate award from Emaar in 2017 – said: “Considering Emaar’s track record of constructing the tallest tower in the world, I strongly believe that Emaar will construct and complete the Creek Tower or a better project that is even more attractive and adds more value to the master community as well as enhances the global positioning of Dubai.”
He added: “Moreover, we have never seen any official announcement or communication regarding the refraining of mentioning the Dubai Creek Tower, which is the reason that all agencies in Dubai are still using the images provided by sellers and landlords.”
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