Pentominium and Marina 101 now the only stalled super-towers in Dubai Marina

It’s a testament to how Dubai has quietly gotten on with completing its buildings over the past three years since the global financial crisis that only two super-tower projects in the Dubai Marina are still stalled.

As ArabianBusiness.com reports today the 172-storey Pentominium tower project downed tools last August while the developer Trident comes to terms with cashflow problems and the cost of constructing what was to be the second highest building in the UAE after the Burj Khalifa.

Sky-high ambition

There were to be 172 luxury apartments, one per floor with interiors designed by Salvatore Ferragamo, the Italian fashion house. These penthouses have been sold off-plan and are still traded for around $5 million each. But work on the skyscraper is not much beyond the 25th-floor of the shell-and-core.

More conspicuous is the massive empty frame of the 100-storey ‘TAV’ tower or Marina 101 as it is properly titled that got almost to its full height before stopping construction.

But then this is seeing the glass as half-empty rather than half-full. It’s amazing that so many of these super tall buildings in Dubai Marina have been completed against the background of the global financial crisis, Dubai real estate crash and then the Dubai debt crunch.

Now the problem is to fill them up with residents. More than 3,000 units in this area are expected to come onto the market for rent or sale in 2012. That is an awful lot of a similar product in one location.

Location, location

However, the Dubai Marina is attractive particularly to Western expatriates and the more Westernized Arabs now moving to Dubai in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings. Apartment rentals and sale prices have stabilized in 2011.

The district has achieved critical mass in terms of local shops, services and restaurants and offers a lifestyle second to none in the Middle East for the young and trendy who want to live near the sea. Its towers are better constructed than the nearby Jumeirah Beach residence though mainly without sea views.

What will happen to the Pentominium and Marina 101 if their developers cannot complete them? In most global cities there would be a sale forced by creditors and then a slightly less ambitious building completed. Perhaps it will be the same in Dubai.