Dubai Zoo Site Becomes 90-Home Jumeirah Community

Anyone who grew up in Dubai during the 1990s or early 2000s probably remembers the small zoo tucked along Jumeirah Beach Road. It was noisy, crowded on weekends, and full of school trips. 

That chapter closed on November 5, 2017, after fifty years of operation, and the animals moved to Dubai Safari Park. Since then, the plot has sat quietly while the city around it kept changing.

Now the site has a clear future. Shamal Holding has appointed Dutco Construction as main contractor for a 90-home low-rise residential community on the land, pushing the scheme into its main build phase. 

Shamal Holding Plans 90 Low-Rise Homes

The plan is a 90-home master-planned community arranged around landscaped courtyards, shared greenery, and one large central park. 

DXB Lab handles the architecture, with H&H involved on the development side. The design language leans toward clean geometry and natural materials rather than glass towers, which fits Jumeirah 1 better than another high-rise would.

A few details stand out to anyone who has walked older Dubai neighborhoods:

• Mature trees from the zoo grounds stay in place

• Low-rise massing across the entire plot

• Shared courtyards instead of packed parking decks

• A walkable layout that cuts short car trips

• Open space taking up a large share of the land

That last point matters more than it sounds. Plenty of central Dubai plots get maximized to the last square meter. Choosing 90 low-rise homes on a site this central is a deliberate trade, and it says something about how Shamal reads long-term value.

Amenities Inside the Jumeirah 1 Community

Residents get a clubhouse, wellness area, gym, lounge, family swimming pool, and children’s play facilities. None of that is unusual on its own. What changes the feel is scale. 

Ninety households sharing a clubhouse behaves very differently from four hundred households sharing one. Booking a padel court or finding a lounger by the pool stops being a competitive sport.

Walkability is written into the masterplan too. Homes and communal facilities sit close enough that daily movement happens on foot. Given Jumeirah 1 sits near the beach, near Al Wasl Road, and within reach of the Dubai Water Canal, that setup makes practical sense.

Why 90 Dubai Homes Are Not For Sale

Here is the part that separates this project from most Dubai launches. Shamal will retain ownership of all ninety residences and offer them through premium leasing. There will be no unit sales, no floor plan brochures, no payment plan tables.

Anyone hoping to buy off-plan projects in Dubai on this particular plot will need to look elsewhere. That is not a criticism of the scheme; it is simply a different asset strategy. 

Single ownership means one party controls leasing, maintenance, landscaping, and community management. Standards stay consistent because no fragmented owners association has to vote on them.

Buyers who want to invest in off-plan properties in Dubai still have plenty of nearby options, including off-plan projects in Dubai Harbour and Jumeirah 1, where Shamal and Dutco have already worked together on infrastructure packages.

Dubai Zoo Redevelopment Project Details

Sustainable Buildings and Retained Zoo Trees

Talk of green buildings and sustainable buildings gets thrown around loosely in this market. Here, at least a few decisions carry real weight. Keeping mature trees is one of them. 

A tree that has been growing on a site for decades provides shade and cooling that no newly planted sapling can match for another 20 years. Retaining them is slower and more expensive during construction, and developers usually clear everything instead.

Low-rise density also reduces cooling loads compared with tower formats, and a walkable layout genuinely lowers internal vehicle movement rather than just claiming to.

What Build-to-Rent Means for Dubai Property Market

Dubai has spent years building for buyers. Institutional rental stock, professionally managed and held long term, has stayed thin by comparison. Projects like this hint at a shift.

A few takeaways for anyone reading the market:

• Prime central plots are getting lower density, not higher

• Build-to-rent is entering premium Dubai locations

• Heritage sites are being reused rather than erased

• Tier 1 contractors are securing repeat client relationships

For those planning to buy off-plan properties in UAE for investment purpose, the read is indirect but useful. When a major holding company decides to hold rather than sell in Jumeirah 1, it is a vote of confidence in long-term rental demand across established central districts. That tends to support values in surrounding communities too.

Preserving Dubai Zoo Heritage on Beach Road

Dubai does not always keep its old landmarks. Buildings come down, plots get rebuilt, and memory fades fast in a city moving this quickly. So the decision to reference the zoo through preserved trees and landscaping is notable. 

It will not satisfy everyone who wanted the site kept as public space, and that debate is fair. Still, a low-rise community with a central park is a softer outcome than most alternatives that could have landed on a plot this valuable.

Neither rental rates nor a completion date has been released. Shamal first announced the scheme in June 2025, and the contractor appointment on August 10, 2026, marks the real construction start.

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Conclusion

The former Dubai Zoo site is heading toward something quieter than what stood there before. Ninety homes, a central park, old trees left standing, and one owner responsible for the whole thing. It will not generate the sales buzz of a tower launch, and it is not meant to.

For residents, it offers a low-density address in one of Dubai’s most established neighborhoods. For market watchers, it marks the arrival of serious build-to-rent product in a prime location. Both are worth paying attention to as the rest of 2026 unfolds.

Looking at off-plan properties in Jumeirah? Reach out to Kotook and talk it through.