469 hectares
The full island, planned as a set of distinct districts rather than a single scheme.
Abu Dhabi · Off the Corniche
Lulu Island,
Abu Dhabi
Four point two square kilometres of reclaimed land sitting a few hundred metres off the Corniche promenade — the closest island to downtown Abu Dhabi, empty for three decades, and moving again. Early works were reported awarded in January 2026.
Status check · updated 15 August 2026
No prices, no floor plans, no sales launch — yet
We would rather tell you this on the first screen than sell you a fiction. As of today there is no published price list, no floor plan, no payment plan and no confirmed handover date for Lulu Island, and no villa or townhouse listings for the island exist on the UAE portals. The master developer for this phase has not been named in any official announcement either.
What has happened is more interesting than another rumour: on 22 January 2026 the construction trade press reported that a UAE contractor won the Lulu Island early works package. Early works is the enabling stage — the one that comes before infrastructure, and before a sales launch. After thirty years of stop-start plans, that is the first hard signal in a long time.
This page is an independent guide to the island and a register of interest. Every figure below comes from the public record — the island's approved masterplan, its development history and Abu Dhabi market reporting. When an official release lands, the people on the register hear first.
Join the registerThe island
The last empty island in the middle of the city
Every other waterfront address in Abu Dhabi had to be reached. Lulu Island is already there — in the frame of every photograph taken from the Corniche, on the horizon of every apartment on the city's north-west shore, and still, after thirty years, almost entirely undeveloped.
Lulu Island — Al Lulu, the pearl — is a man-made island. Reclamation started in 1986 and finished in 1992, laying down about 1,050 acres of land in a long curve that shelters the Corniche from the open Gulf. It is a breakwater that happens to be the size of a district.
Since then it has been almost everything except a place people live. It opened briefly to the public in 2007 with two restaurants, four coffee shops, camel and horse riding tracks and two artificial lakes. A corporation was formed in 2003 to steer its future. Sorouh Real Estate took it on in 2008 in partnership with Mubadala, which held a 40 per cent stake, and commissioned a full masterplan. Then 2009 happened, and the island went quiet — the road link and the proposed landmark tower shelved indefinitely.
The plans were never bad. The timing was. What survives from that period is an approved, professionally drawn masterplan for a low-rise island community of villas, townhouses and apartments — and land that has had three decades to settle.
Forty years in eight steps
How Lulu Island got here
The honest version — including the decade when nothing happened. If you are weighing an early position, the history is the risk profile.
- 1986–92
The island is made
Reclamation creates roughly 1,050 acres of new land off the Corniche, sheltering the bay from the open Gulf.
- 2003
A corporation is formed
The General Corporation for Development and Investment of Lulu Island is established to steer the island's future.
- 2006
First mixed-use vision
Sorouh Real Estate proposes a mixed-use island; Arquitectonica produces an early masterplan.
- 2007
Briefly open to the public
Restaurants, coffee shops, riding tracks and two artificial lakes open. The island gets its only taste of visitors.
- 2008
Sorouh and Mubadala
The island is entrusted to Sorouh in partnership with Mubadala, which takes a 40 per cent stake. Investment-zone status opens ownership to all nationalities.
- 2009
The detailed masterplan lands
Sasaki completes a detailed low-rise masterplan: 469 hectares, ~16,000 homes, 25 per cent built footprint, public beaches, canals and parks.
- 2010–25
The quiet years
The financial crisis stalls the programme. The road link and the proposed 400-metre Lulu Tower are shelved indefinitely. The island stays empty.
- Jan 2026
Early works awarded
Trade press reports on 22 January 2026 that a UAE contractor has won the Lulu Island early works deal — the enabling stage that precedes infrastructure and a sales launch.
What comes next, in the usual order: master developer announcement → infrastructure contracts → masterplan reveal → sales launch with prices and floor plans. We are at step one.
Planned typology
Lulu Island villas
The masterplan puts the villas where you would expect them: on the Gulf-facing side, at the lowest density on the island, backing onto open water rather than the city.
The island has two distinct faces, and the plan treats them differently. The side that looks out to the open Gulf — away from the city — is designated for the lowest-density housing, which in practice means detached villas on generous plots with direct beach orientation. The side facing Abu Dhabi carries the denser, more urban product. It is a simple and durable idea: the quiet edge gets the villas, the city edge gets the walkable streets.
What makes a Lulu Island villa different from a Saadiyat or Hudayriyat villa is not the specification — nobody has published one yet — it is the address. This is the only large parcel of undeveloped waterfront land in direct sight of the Corniche and the downtown skyline. A villa here would look back at the city across a few hundred metres of water, with a public beach frontage and a five-minute crossing, rather than a thirty-minute drive.
What we do not know yet about the villas
Plot sizes, built-up areas, bedroom counts, specification, price per square foot, payment plan and handover are all unpublished. Nothing on this page is a price quote. If you are shown a Lulu Island villa price list today, ask which developer issued it — as of August 2026 no developer has.
Gulf-facing, low density
- Designated for the island's lowest-density housing
- Oriented to the open Gulf rather than the city
- Public beaches written into the masterplan
- Low-rise context — no towers overshadowing the plots
- Freehold title available to all nationalities
Typology and positioning taken from the island's approved masterplan. Unit-level detail follows the developer's launch.
Planned typology
Lulu Island townhouses
Townhouses sit on the city-facing side, inside walkable neighbourhoods — the part of the plan that points straight back at the Corniche skyline.
The masterplan organises the island into distinct neighbourhoods rather than one continuous scheme, and the residential programme inside them is built around apartments and townhouses. Density steps up as you move from the Gulf-facing edge toward the city-facing shore, so the townhouse product lands in the middle: more urban than the villas, more private than an apartment, and arranged along streets deliberately laid out to be walked.
Two design decisions matter more than they sound. Streets run north-west to south-east to cut heat gain, which is the difference between a street you can use in October and one you cannot. And buildings cover only about a quarter of the island — the remaining land is parks, beaches, waterways and cultural landscape, so a townhouse here is not a plot squeezed into a grid but a house inside a park with a shoreline.
What we do not know yet about the townhouses
Bedroom mix, plot and built-up sizes, cluster layouts, specification, pricing, payment plan and delivery dates are all unpublished. Everything above describes the approved masterplan's intent, not a product on sale.
City-facing, walkable
- Set within distinct island neighbourhoods
- Streets oriented north-west to south-east to limit heat gain
- Walkable retail written into the neighbourhood plan
- Skyline outlook across the channel to the Corniche
- Parks, canals and beaches on ~75% of the island
Typology and positioning taken from the island's approved masterplan. Unit-level detail follows the developer's launch.
The approved plan
What the masterplan actually says
The detailed masterplan was drawn by Sasaki for Sorouh Real Estate and completed in December 2009. It remains the most specific public document about how this island is meant to work.
16,000 homes
Housing up to 30,000 residents — a district, not a compound, at genuinely low density.
25% built footprint
Buildings cover about a quarter of the island. The rest is parks, streets, waterways and landscape.
NW–SE street grain
Streets deliberately oriented to minimise heat gain — shade engineered into the layout.
Open space and water
- Multiple public beaches along the island's edges
- Central Park, Dunes Park and Marina Park as the three landscape anchors
- New canals cut through the island to improve water flow and quality
- Cultural landscape and commemorative uses alongside the residential districts
Uses and movement
- Residential, commercial, office, resort, marina and institutional uses
- Light rail, buses and water taxi services planned within the island
- Earlier schemes included a permanent bridge to the mainland
- A 400-metre landmark tower — "Lulu Tower" — was proposed, then shelved
One caveat worth stating plainly: this plan dates from 2009. A revived project may keep it, revise it, or replace it. Treat it as the island's design intent and the best available guide — not as a guarantee of what will be built.
Location
Closer to downtown than downtown is to itself
Lulu Island runs parallel to the Corniche between the Breakwater and Mina Zayed. The whole of central Abu Dhabi sits across a channel you could swim.
Across the channel
The Corniche promenade, its public beach and the whole run of Corniche Road sit directly opposite — a few hundred metres of water, not a commute.
The city's business core
Al Maryah Island and ADGM, Abu Dhabi's financial district, sit at the eastern end of the same shoreline — which is precisely why an island this central reads as an executive address.
Culture and leisure
Saadiyat Island's museum district, Marina Mall and the Breakwater, Emirates Palace and Mina Zayed's waterfront regeneration all sit within the same immediate arc.
Access, honestly stated
Today Lulu Island is reached by private boat only. Historic plans provide for a permanent road link, water taxis, buses and an internal light rail line, and a 2002 works contract shows infrastructure was started on the island long ago. The access arrangement for the current phase has not been published — it is one of the first things worth asking when the developer announcement comes.
Buying & ownership
Who can buy, and what the market around it looks like
Freehold, all nationalities
Lulu Island is one of Abu Dhabi's designated investment zones. Under Abu Dhabi Law No. 13 of 2019, non-UAE nationals can hold freehold title inside those zones, with full rights to use, develop, lease, sell or bequeath the property. Ownership is registered with the Department of Municipalities and Transport, which issues the Tabu title deed.
That legal position is settled and predates the current project — it is not something that depends on the launch. What is not yet settled is everything commercial: which developer, which product, what price, what payment plan.
How to judge the price when it lands
Since no Lulu Island price exists, the only sensible preparation is knowing what the islands around it trade at. These are market benchmarks for comparable Abu Dhabi addresses, not Lulu Island figures:
| Address | Benchmark | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| Saadiyat Island — apartments | ~AED 43,100 / m² (~AED 4,000 / sq ft) average transaction | +21% year on year |
| Saadiyat Island — villas | ~AED 26,500 / m² (~AED 2,460 / sq ft) average transaction | Emirate's most expensive villa location |
| Al Reem Island — apartments | ~AED 900 – 1,690 / sq ft depending on building and view | +18% year on year (approx.) |
| Yas Island — apartments | The comparison point for a mid-market island address | +18% year on year (approx.) |
Sources: Knight Frank and ADREC transaction data and Bayut's Abu Dhabi H1 2026 sales report, as reported in the UAE property press. Benchmarks move; verify before you commit to anything.
Register your interest
Be on the list before the price list exists
Early positions on an island launch are decided in the days after the developer announcement — usually before anything is public. Tell us what you are looking for and you will hear the moment the masterplan, the price list and the first release are out.
- Official masterplan and unit mix, the day it is published
- Price list and payment plan, unedited
- Villa and townhouse releases flagged separately
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We are an independent property advisory registering interest in Lulu Island. We are not the developer and we do not claim to represent one. Nothing on this page is an offer or a financial recommendation.
Straight answers
Lulu Island Abu Dhabi — FAQ
Lulu Island sits a few hundred metres off the Abu Dhabi Corniche, running parallel to the shoreline between the Breakwater in the south-west and Mina Zayed in the north-east. It is the closest island to downtown Abu Dhabi — the channel between the island and the Corniche promenade is roughly 350 metres at its narrowest, which is why the island fills the view from most Corniche-facing buildings.
No. As of August 2026 there is no sales release for Lulu Island. No price list, floor plans, unit sizes or payment plan have been published, and there are no active villa or townhouse listings for the island on the UAE property portals.
The villas and townhouses described publicly come from the island's approved masterplan, which designates lower-density villa plots on the Gulf-facing side and townhouse neighbourhoods on the city-facing side. Anyone quoting you a Lulu Island price today is quoting an estimate, not a developer price list.
The approved masterplan places the Lulu Island villas on the Gulf-facing side of the island — the edge that looks out to open water rather than back at the city — and designates it for the lowest housing density on the island.
In practice that means detached villas on generous plots with direct beach orientation, in a low-rise context with public beaches written into the plan. Plot sizes, built-up areas, bedroom counts, specification and price have not been published by any developer.
The Lulu Island townhouses sit on the city-facing side, inside walkable neighbourhoods that look across the channel to the Abu Dhabi Corniche skyline. Density steps up from the Gulf-facing villa edge toward the city shore, so townhouses land between the villas and the apartments.
Streets in these neighbourhoods run north-west to south-east to limit heat gain, and buildings cover only about a quarter of the island. Bedroom mix, plot and built-up sizes, cluster layouts and pricing remain unpublished.
The master developer for the current phase has not been confirmed by any official announcement. The island was entrusted to Sorouh Real Estate in 2008 in partnership with Mubadala, which held a 40 per cent stake, and that masterplan was shelved after 2009.
Several property blogs name Eagle Hills or Modon for the revived project. Neither developer lists Lulu Island on its own project portfolio, so treat those attributions as unverified until an official announcement is made. We will update this page the day one lands.
Yes. Lulu Island is one of Abu Dhabi's designated investment zones, and under Abu Dhabi Law No. 13 of 2019 non-UAE nationals may hold freehold title inside those zones, with full rights to use, lease, sell or bequeath the property. Title is registered with the Department of Municipalities and Transport, which issues the Tabu title deed.
The detailed masterplan prepared by Sasaki covers 469 hectares and houses up to 30,000 people in about 16,000 homes. Buildings cover only around 25 per cent of the island; the rest is parks, walkable streets, waterways and cultural landscape, including public beaches, a Central Park, a Dunes Park and a Marina Park.
Streets are oriented north-west to south-east to limit heat gain, and canals were cut to improve water circulation. Earlier proposals also included a permanent bridge to the mainland and a 400-metre landmark tower known as Lulu Tower.
Pre-launch. The clearest recent signal is a trade-press report dated 22 January 2026 that a UAE contractor won the Lulu Island early works package — the enabling stage that normally precedes infrastructure and a sales launch. Until a developer announcement follows, there is no confirmed launch date, no confirmed handover and no confirmed pricing.
Today the island is reached only by private boat. Historic masterplan documents provide for a permanent road link to the mainland alongside water taxis, buses and a light rail line within the island. The final access arrangement for the current phase has not been published.
Roughly 1,050 acres — about 4.2 km², or 469 hectares. It is entirely man-made: reclamation began in 1986 and was completed in 1992, so the land has had more than thirty years to settle.