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New York: The newly launched joint venture development company between Nakheel and Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB), Tahiya, will begin construction of its first two projects within six months, according to senior officials at Nakheel.
"One is in International City and one in Jumeirah Heights. They'll both be residential," said Chris O'Donnell, chief executive officer of Nakheel, speaking to Gulf News on the sidelines of the New York launch of Trump International Hotel and Tower on the Palm Jumeirah.
Both projects are currently in the design stage.
O'Donnell also said that Dubai has room for only a couple more Trump towers.
"In both New York and Miami, there's a Trump tower. The issue, I think, is you have to look at the exclusiveness of what you're offering. I think there's probably room for another one or two Trump towers in Dubai, but we want to protect the exclusive nature of what we have," O'Donnell said.
O'Donnell said that Nakheel has a landbank of around 3.5 billion square feet being developed in Dubai in 17 projects.
"We have 17 projects ... [and they] include Waterfront, Palm Jebel Ali, Palm Jumeirah, so they're enormous. Palm Deira is 4,400 hectares," said O'Donnell.
At 4,400 hectares, Palm Deira is nine times the size of Palm Jumeirah and will house a population of about a million.
Bridges are currently being built and Nakheel expects to be selling land and "potentially" apartments, by the end of this year, according to O'Donnell.
O'Donnell said, "Nakheel is well established in the UK, Africa and Singapore and is now looking at expansion opportunities in Australia, eastern Europe and China."
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