Dubai Property Hunt

The strip between Interchange One and Trade Centre roundabout has some of Dubai’s most modern residential and commercial towers and some of the most lavish hotels in town. The prime location of the area makes it one of the popular destinations. This part of Sheikh Zayed Road is full with architecturally splendid skyscrapers. The area is mainly consisted of apartments with the range of styles and luxury levels, but the accommodation here is expansive. Most of the apartments have some sort of leisure facilities in the building. The rents is around Dhs.90,000 for a one bedroom and Dhs.1 70,000 for a three bedroom. There are no huge malls in the immediate neighborhood, the nearest big shopping malls are probably Deira City Centre or Mercato on Jumeira Road there are two good shopping centre, the Crowne Plaza ‘Holiday Centre’ with some clothes shops, an optician, pharmacy, and a fairly big Choithram supermarket, and the Boulevard at Emirates Towers, with a selection of designer clothes outlets, jewellery and perfume shops. There’s also an optician, a nail bar, a men’s spa and a cigar shop. There are number of smaller shops catering to all of the everyday needs. Many of the towers have grocery or convenience stores on the ground floor, and there are supermarkets such as Lifco for weekly shops. Spinneys on Trade Centre Road or in Mazaya Centre and Safestway supermarket aren’t far away. An MMI liquor store is located behind Pizza Hut and number of banks and ATMs including NBD on both sides, HSBC, Mashreqbank and a Thomas Cook money exchange. a machine is available to pay police fines in the Boulevard at Emirates Towers. The hotels offer spas, gyms and leisure facilities but they are expansive, many residential and office towers have some kind of fitness facilities.

The post office is on Al WasI Road, while Mail Box in the lobby of Al Durrah Tower provides a range of postal services and P0 boxes, you can also rent a PO box at the Emarat garage on Al Safa Street. The new Satwa Park offers sports facilities and a bit of greenery and Safa Park isn’t too far away.

Just down Al Safa Street there’s a Grand Lube for all your automotive lubrication needs, plus repairs, tyres, and a car wash. Emarat, also has a car wash (considered best in Dubai) and offers oil changes. There is high concentration of hotels and independent restaurants in the area so the options are as many as you can imagine. For dining out you’ve got the finery of the Fairmont and The Chippy.

Some of the favorite bars, restaurants and clubs of Dubai are along this strip, including Spectrum on One in the Fairmont, Teatro and Long’s Bar in the Towers Rotana and Trader Vic’s and Zinc in the Crowne Plaza.

Zyara and Arabica are nice cafes for local food and shisha and Saj Express is good for cheap Arabic food. French Connection offers nice food, tea, coffee and bakery products plus free wireless net access. Shakespeare & Co is also popular because of its unique bohemian decor and interesting outside space. There are bowling lanes and a pool hall near Interchange 1 on the Satwa side. Al Zahra Medical Centre in Al Safa Tower has a range of medical facilities including family medicine and dentistry. Rashid, Iranian hospital and the private Neuro Spinal Hospital are the nearest healthcare facility providers in case of emergency. The new Al Bada’a Clinic (government) is at the back of Chelsea Tower. The Doha Pharmacy close to 21st Century Tower is open 24 hours and there are few other pharmacies located around. The area itself has no international schools, but several schools and nurseries can be found nearby in Satwa and Jumeira. Parking is not a problem if you have a card to access your building’s car park, otherwise it’s either find a sandy spot between the towers or pay for charged parking on the street. Traffic is problematic in this area, as the E11 Sheikh Zayed Road is a main road linking Sharjah and ‘old’ Dubai with Jebel Ali, and Media and Internet Cities. At rush hour the traffic is crawling, towards Jebel Ali in the morning, and towards Sharjah in the evening. The two interchanges (Trade Centre Roundabout and Defence Roundabout) also get congested especially the latter which is being upgraded. Traffic gets even worse in case of a major event or exhibition. Be careful from speeding drivers on the service roads. Traffic noise can be annoying. Trucks are not permitted on Sheikh Zayed Road so there’s no thundering sound of Lorrie at all hours.