Shangri-La

Office floors sold at Trade Center 1, not residential square footage

AHS Properties is not selling apartments at Shangri-La. The developer is offering entire office floors, or fractions of a floor, in a high-rise commercial tower at Trade Center 1. Neighbouring projects announced recently in the same area (Burj Azizi, Trump Tower, SOL Luxe) are all betting on residential or hospitality. Shangri-La does the opposite and targets the strata-titled office market, a much narrower segment in Dubai. Handover is set for March 31, 2028. The pre-launch itself has no date yet, and the developer admits detailed information is still to come.

Three formats: quarter, half or full floor

The offering comes in three unit sizes. A quarter floor starts at 3,500 square feet, roughly 325 square metres. A half floor reaches 10,000 square feet, and a full floor 20,000 square feet (a little over 1,850 square metres). This breakdown targets occupiers who want to control an entire level, with their own lobby landing and their own signage, rather than a single office lost in a shared corridor. The entry price for a quarter floor already runs into millions of dirhams, which puts the project out of reach for the typical retail investor from the start.

Floor-area figures that need clarifying

The numbers provided don't quite add up. If a full floor is 20,000 square feet, a quarter should be 5,000, not 3,500. Several explanations are possible: floor plates that vary in size depending on the level, common areas deducted differently depending on the unit format, or simply a placeholder figure. Before committing to anything, a buyer should ask for floor-by-floor plans and a clear distinction between net leasable area and gross floor area. On a product sold by the floor, a few hundred square feet of difference has a direct impact on the real price per square foot.

A name that echoes the neighbouring hotel, with no confirmed link

The Shangri-La Hotel already occupies a tower on Sheikh Zayed Road, in this same Trade Center area. The project's name immediately calls to mind that address, well known in business circles. The available source, however, makes no mention of any branding agreement with the hotel group, nor of any management by that operator. It would be unwise to price a unit based on an affiliation that isn't documented. This is a question worth putting directly to the developer at pre-launch.

60/40 plan and an intent deposit ahead of any official date

The payment plan follows a 60/40 split: 60% during construction, 40% on handover. This structure is standard in Dubai and includes no post-handover instalments. To reserve a unit, AHS Properties is already asking for an expression of interest (EOI) deposit running into six figures in dirhams. That's a significant sum for a project with neither a confirmed launch date nor a published specification sheet. The refund terms for this EOI, and whether it sits in an escrow account, both warrant written confirmation.

March 2028, a tight schedule for a tower not yet launched

Between the absence of a pre-launch and a handover date set for the first quarter of 2028, the construction window looks short for a high-rise tower. The developer has not disclosed height, floor count, or architect. AHS Properties is known for upscale residential work, including One Canal near Safa Park, but an office building comes with a different set of constraints (climate control, structural grids, parking, building systems). Likely buyers are mainly companies wanting to occupy their own space, and family offices looking for a commercial asset on Sheikh Zayed Road, close to DIFC and the World Trade Centre. For them, a realistic handover date will matter just as much as the address.