Dubai Creek Harbour · Emaar Properties
Emaar is building a 2.6 million m² retail, hospitality and commercial district at the centre of Dubai Creek Harbour, ten minutes from Dubai International Airport. This briefing separates what Emaar has actually confirmed from what is left over from earlier announcements — because for a brand deciding whether to put Dubai Square on its pipeline, that distinction is the whole job.
Total district
2.6M m²
Retail, hospitality & commercial (Dec 2025)
Retail floor space
750,000 m²
Gross, per the 2018 plan. GLA unpublished
Masterplan value
AED 180bn
Dubai Creek Harbour, c. US$49bn
To DXB airport
~10 min
Emaar’s stated drive time, via E44
Target delivery
c. 2028
Three-year build stated Dec 2025
Why it matters to a retailer
Dubai’s super-regional malls trade at close to full occupancy, and prime retail rents rose around 9% year on year — putting the emirate among the top five cities globally for rental growth. For a brand without a Dubai flagship, or with one it has outgrown, waiting for space in an existing centre is a slow game. A scheme of this size opening at once is a rare moment when a large, contiguous, well-positioned unit is actually available to negotiate for.
A 2.6 million m² district with 750,000 m² of gross retail floor space cannot be filled with the same tenant roster as an existing centre. Whatever the final lettable figure, it implies room for categories, formats and brand debuts that Dubai’s current malls have no floorplate for.
The mall sits inside its own city. Dubai Creek Harbour is planned with around 7.4 million m² of residential space, plus a hotel programme — footfall that arrives on foot, not only by car.
The 2018 announcement set out RFID stock visibility, click-and-collect, smart fitting rooms and centre-wide AI recommendation. None of it was restated in the December 2025 relaunch, so treat it as intent to confirm rather than a specification to plan against.
Scale in context
The 750,000 m² figure in circulation is gross retail floor space from the 2018 plan, not gross leasable area. Comparing it directly to a trading mall’s GLA overstates the difference, sometimes dramatically. Emaar has not published a GLA for Dubai Square — so it is one of the first numbers to ask for.
Retail gross leasable area — Dubai’s largest operating malls
Published GLA for the three largest trading centres in the emirate. Dubai Square is shown for position only: no GLA figure has been released for it. Square metres.
The widely quoted 750,000 m² for Dubai Square is gross retail floor space from the 2018 announcement — it includes malls, circulation, back-of-house and plant, so the lettable area will be materially lower. Setting it against these GLA figures would compare two different measures. The Dubai Mall’s 350,000 m² also predates its announced expansion. Comparator GLAs from published mall data.
| Scheme | GLA (m²) |
|---|---|
| Dubai Square | Not published |
| The Dubai Mall | 350,000 |
| Mall of the Emirates | 255,489 |
| Dubai Hills Mall | 190,000 |
Read this first
Dubai Square was launched in 2018 as a joint venture between Emaar and Dubai Holding, went quiet, and returned in December 2025 as an Emaar-only project with a noticeably shorter description. Emaar bought out Dubai Holding’s stake in Dubai Creek Harbour in 2022, so the JV framing still repeated in much of the coverage is four years out of date.
That history matters commercially, because a great deal of what circulates about Dubai Square — the Chinatown district, the waterpark, the smart-retail technology stack, the 750,000 m² figure — comes from the 2018 launch and was not repeated in 2025. It may all still be the plan. It has simply not been reconfirmed, and no brand should commit capital against it without asking.
How to open that conversation| Item | Status |
|---|---|
| Developer Emaar Properties (sole owner of Dubai Creek Harbour since 2022) | Confirmed |
| Location Dubai Creek Harbour, alongside Dubai Creek Tower | Confirmed |
| District area 2.6M m² retail, hospitality & commercial | Confirmed Dec 2025 |
| Construction Underway, three-year programme | Confirmed Dec 2025 |
| Retail floor space 750,000 m² gross, three levels | 2018 plan, not restated |
| Districts & anchors Chinatown, art district, waterpark, arena | 2018 plan, not restated |
| Gross leasable area | Never published |
| Opening date c. 2028 implied; coverage also cites early 2029 | Unconfirmed |
| Unit sizes, rents, anchors, leasing launch | Not published |
The scheme as drawn
Emaar’s boulevard render shows the idea the whole project rests on: a shopping street with a road running down the middle of it, glazed over, with Dubai Creek Tower rising through the roof at the far end. It is also a 2018 image — useful for understanding the concept, not for measuring a unit.
Next
Specification, districts, anchors and the in-centre technology stack — read as a retailer, not a shopper.
Where the catchment comes from: the resident base, road access, the Metro Blue Line and airport proximity.
Dubai market fundamentals, category-by-category fit, and the risks worth pricing in.