UAE-based property developer Nakheel is to build 102 new villas on the Palm Jumeirah development.

The 102 villas will cover a total area of 490,000 square metres, a Nakheel representative told MEED on the sidelines of Dubai’s Cityscape exhibition on 28 September.

This is the first major new project that Nakheel has announced since 2009, when the economic downturn caused Dubai’s real-estate sector to collapse.

The collapse of the financial markets and the bursting of Dubai’s real-estate sector caused Nakheel to put its major projects on hold and forced the company to write off AED78.6bn ($21.4bn) in the value of its property assets.

The local developer began to restart work on unfinished projects towards the end of last year.