Nakheel is preparing to tender AED6.5bn ($1.8bn) of construction contracts this year as the Dubai-based developer continues to build new projects to support its existing communities.

“[This year, we will be tendering] both malls on the Palm and the Ibn Battuta expansion,” Ali Rashid Lootah, the chairman of Nakheel told MEED on 13 February. “We will also be tendering the Jumeirah Village Circle villas and some other developments on the leisure side on the Palm Jumeirah.”

The two malls on the Palm will be worth more than AED3bn. The largest is the estimated AED2.5bn mall that will be tendered during the second quarter. “We will tender it sometime in April and hopefully we will award by July,” says Lootah.

The development will be split into two main construction packages, one covering the mall, the other for the construction of the hotel tower. The packages will be openly tendered. “Our policy is public tender. We encourage everyone to participate,” says Lootah. “We want the competition.”

Once complete, the mall will have five levels and three basement parking levels with almost 100,000 square metres of retail space, a 1,000 sq m indoor garden and a 180-metre-high viewing deck. The mall will have about 200 shops, including a 4,200 sq m supermarket and two anchor department stores, a nine-screen cinema and six medical clinics.

The five-star hotel will have 200 room and 200 apartment units, this may increase of more floors are added to the tower.

The mall will have 4,000 parking spaces and will also have a station on the Palm monorail, which runs along the trunk of the Palm to Atlantis from the terminus on Beach road. Nakheel and Dubai’s Roads & Transport Authority plans to connect the monorail with the under construction Al-Sufouh tram network that will connect to Dubai Metro.

The other mall construction contract that will be tendered this year is The Pointe. The estimated AED800m project involves building 136,000 sq m of shops and restaurants at the top of the trunk opposite the Atlantis resort. The consultant is Lebanon’s Dar al-Handasah.

Nakheel is developing other projects on the Palm Jumeirah. On 7 February, the developer launched a beachfront residential development called Club Vista Mare. The project includes 33 studio apartments along with eight cafes and restaurants, retail areas and gymnasium facilities. Like the two malls, construction is expected to start this year with anticipated completion in early 2015.

The projects that will move ahead are part of Nakheel strategy to develop high-end properties on existing developments where most of the infrastructure is already in place. “Our focus is the high-end, they are the people with less risk,” says Lootah. “We [Nakheel] have always been a high-end developer. There were some that were not such as International City, but we do not foresee going into that and competing with others. We have a captured market and we want to maximise these locations.”

The projects will help Nakheel build on a strong 2012. It made a profit of AED2bn for the year, a 57 per cent increase on the previous year. Revenues were up 91 per cent at AED7.8bn as Dubai’s property market began to rebound and investors began buying properties again.

The company also started work on several new projects. At Jumeirah Park, it awarded the local SS Lootah Contracting a contract to build 247 villas, and Arabtec Construction a contract for 134 villas. At the Dragon Mart complex, the local Kele Contracting won a AED600m deal to expand the mall. The local Parkway International Contracting won a AED27.5m contract to build a 10,600 sq m community centre serving Jumeirah Islands, Jumeirah Village Triangle and Jumeirah Park, and the local Dubai Civil Engineering won a AED194m contract to build the Palm Residences on the Palm Jumeirah.