Dubai Investments Park (DIP) is designing two masterplanned residential communities in Dubai.

Both projects are located at Dubai Investments Park in Dubai, which is located on Mohammed bin Zayed Road next to the Expo 2020 site, Dubai South and Al-Maktoum International airport.

“We have two masterplanned residential projects. Both are at early stages,” Omar al-Mesmar, general manager, Dubai Investments Park Development Company told MEED on 16 May.

DIP will complete the infrastructure for both developments and then sell land onto third party investors that will complete the buildings in accordance with the masterplan. The third party investors could be other Dubai Investments’ – the parent company of DIP – entities. Both developments will be aimed at the mid-income market.

The most advanced is the Palisades development for which DIP took over the management of in 2016. Al-Mesmar said the masterplan for the development has been approved and the local Arabtec Construction is executing the early works. The consultant is Lebanon’s Khatib & Alami. The buildings will be seven floors above ground and the total built up area will be about 1.6 million square metres.

The other development covers about 280,000 square metres of land near to the Greenfield Community School and will include eight and 10-storey residential buildings. Al-Mesmar said that DIP is working with several consultants on the concept design for the project.

DIP opened in 2002 and after a series of expansions over the past 15 years has little land left to develop in Dubai. It is now looking at developing similar industrial parks internationally and is exploring opportunities in Africa in countries such as Angola, Kenya, and Morocco. It is also in talks with an investor in Saudi Arabia to help develop an 11 square kilometre industrial park on the outskirts of Riyadh.

Meanwhile investors are still developing projects at Dubai Investments Park in Dubai.

Chef Middle East - a supplier of foods to the hotel, dining and airline industries - opened a AED75m ($20m) 10,000 square-metre distribution centre on 16 May. It includes over 7,000 square meters of temperature-controlled storage areas that can accommodate up to 8,000 pallets of chilled, frozen, and ambient food and food related products.

Steve Pyle, chief executive officer, Chef Middle East, said that the facility has been designed so that it can be expanded later to meet future market demands.

The UK’s McLaren Construction was the contractor for the project, which won the small project of the year category at the 2017 MEED Quality Awards for Projects.