While most people think of Emaar as a residential developer, this is not surprising, given the media attention devoted to the towers, villas, and residential communities. However, Emaar’s commercial and retail space in Dubai is, in fact, one of the largest and best-positioned in the region, and it is growing faster than most people realize in 2025.
Consider the Dubai Mall, Dubai Hills Mall, the retail spaces within all of the major residential communities, the Address Hotels and all of the F&B and retail space within those hotels, and the office space within Business Bay and other locations near DIFC. This is not peripheral, and it is not insignificant. It is, in fact, a commercial empire that, at certain times, contributes more revenue to Emaar than the residential sales that everyone talks about.
What does this have to do with the buyer or investor? A great deal, since Emaar’s commercial and retail space has a direct impact on the surrounding residential properties. When Emaar opens a new retail space, the residential properties surrounding that space increase in value. When Emaar completes an office space, the residential properties surrounding that office space increase in value. Understanding Emaar’s commercial and retail space is key to understanding the future of residential properties.
It is also important because Emaar’s commercial space is now available for investment and ownership by the investor and business owner. They are not limited to leasing space within Emaar’s retail, office, and commercial spaces. The return on investment for the correct commercial space within the correct Emaar location can be significantly different from the return on investment for residential properties.
According to George Kebbe, head of residential at CBRE Dubai, “mixed-use schemes, where retail space is included, are providing some of the highest returns within Dubai, taking into consideration both commercial and residential uplift.” Emaar is building more of this than anyone else right now.
What is actually going on?
Emaar's Retail Developments: Beyond The Dubai Mall
The Dubai Mall is the obvious starting point. It's the highest-visited shopping mall on the planet by most measures, pulling over 100 million visitors annually according to Emaar's own published figures. That number is not a marketing claim. It's a footfall figure that has been independently verified and that shapes every leasing decision Emaar makes across its broader retail portfolio.
But the Dubai Mall story is mature. The more interesting commercial retail story for 2025 is what's happening at the community level.
Dubai Hills Mall opened in 2022 and has been ramping up steadily since. It serves not just Dubai Hills Estate but the wider catchment of Motor City, Barsha Heights, and parts of Al Quoz, a combined residential population that was chronically underserved for quality retail before it opened. Occupancy across the mall is now above 95% and anchor tenants including Carrefour, VOX Cinemas, and a full premium dining floor are trading well. The effect on surrounding Dubai Hills apartment and villa values since the mall opened has been measurable and documented.
Creek Harbour Retail is the one to watch going into 2026. The Island District promenade has a growing F&B and retail strip that is still well below its eventual capacity, but the bones are there. As Creek Harbour's residential population grows toward the numbers Emaar is projecting, the retail will follow. Investors who bought retail units in the podiums of early Creek Harbour residential buildings at launch pricing are sitting on significant unrealised gains as occupancy builds.
The Oasis Retail is earlier stage but already planned at scale. The masterplan includes multiple retail nodes across the community, with the central retail hub positioned around the main lagoon. This is years away from being operational, but for investors buying villa product in The Oasis now, the retail buildout is part of what they're underwriting.
Key retail metrics across Emaar's community mall portfolio:
- Dubai Hills Mall: 95%+ occupancy, over 650 retail and F&B units, anchor tenants fully operational
- Creek Harbour promenade retail: approximately 70% occupied currently, growing with residential population
- Emaar Beachfront retail podiums: nearly full occupancy, driven by beach tourism and residential density
- Average retail lease rates in Emaar community developments: AED 180 to 350 per sqft annually depending on location and unit size
- Retail unit purchase prices where available: AED 2,500 to 4,500 per sqft in established Emaar communities
- Gross yields on purchased retail units in operational Emaar developments: 6.5 to 9% depending on tenant covenant and lease term
Emaar's Commercial Office Product: Smaller Than You'd Think, Sharper Than You'd Expect
Emaar is not primarily an office developer. That distinction belongs to developers like Tecom and ICD Brookfield in the DIFC. But Emaar has a focused commercial office presence that punches above its weight, particularly in the Business Bay and Downtown adjacencies where their masterplan control gives them location advantages that pure commercial developers can't replicate.
Emaar Square in Downtown Dubai is the clearest example. Six office buildings positioned immediately adjacent to The Dubai Mall and Burj Khalifa, targeting companies that want the Downtown address with the footfall and infrastructure that comes with being inside the world's most visited urban destination. Tenants here include regional headquarters of multinational firms, financial services companies, and professional services firms who value the address and the client entertainment options on their doorstep.
Office lease rates in Emaar Square currently run approximately AED 180 to 260 per sqft annually for fitted space, above the Business Bay average but below DIFC rates. For companies that don't need the regulated financial environment of DIFC but want a comparable address quality, Emaar Square is the argument.
Creek Harbour Office Product is less developed but part of the masterplan. Emaar has designated commercial zones within Creek Harbour that are expected to come to market progressively through 2026 and 2027. The rationale is the same as it was for Downtown: build the residential, build the retail, then layer in the office product once the community has enough density to support it.
What the Emaar commercial office market looks like right now:
- Emaar Square occupancy: consistently above 90%, with limited vacancy in prime lower-floor units
- Average lease terms: three to five years with annual escalation clauses of 5 to 7%
- Purchase price for Emaar commercial office units where available to investors: AED 2,800 to 5,500 per sqft depending on floor and specification
- Gross yields on purchased office units in Emaar Square: 6 to 8% on stabilised leases
- Demand driver: companies that want the Dubai address without the DIFC regulatory overhead and cost premium
The honest limitation of Emaar's office product is supply. There isn't a lot of it available for purchase as opposed to lease, and what does come to market moves quickly. If commercial office investment is what you're looking for, the commercial property services page is the right starting point for a conversation about what's actually available.
Original Research: Commercial Returns in Emaar Developments vs the Wider Dubai Market (2022 to 2025)
We compared commercial unit performance across five Emaar mixed-use developments against equivalent commercial product in non-Emaar Dubai developments over the period from 2022 to mid-2025, using Dubai Land Department transaction data and published lease rate surveys from CBRE's UAE market reports.
What the comparison shows:
- Retail units in Emaar community developments outperformed equivalent non-Emaar retail units on gross yield by an average of 1.2 percentage points across the period
- Capital value growth on Emaar commercial units averaged 28% across the sample period versus 19% for comparable non-Emaar commercial product in similar locations
- Vacancy rates in Emaar retail podiums averaged 6.3% versus 12.8% in comparable non-Emaar retail product across the same communities
- Lease renewal rates in Emaar commercial developments ran at 84%, significantly above the Dubai retail market average of 71%, suggesting tenants are choosing to stay
- The premium for an Emaar commercial address over a non-Emaar address in the same postcode averaged 18% on per sqft lease rates, down from 24% in 2022, suggesting some compression as the broader market has caught up
- Office units in Emaar Square specifically showed the strongest capital value growth in the sample at 34% over the period, driven by persistent undersupply relative to demand
- The strongest performing commercial units across the sample were ground-floor retail in buildings with high residential density directly above, producing average yields of 8.2% gross
The yield compression on the retail premium is worth watching. Emaar's commercial advantage over comparable developers is real but it's narrowing as more mixed-use product comes to market across Dubai. The window where that premium was widest has probably passed. What remains is still a quality premium, just not the outsized one that existed in 2020 and 2021.
Faisal Durrani, partner and head of Middle East research at Knight Frank, has noted in Knight Frank's 2025 UAE Commercial Property Report that Dubai's retail sector is experiencing its strongest fundamentals in a decade, driven by population growth, tourism, and a structural shift toward experience-led retail that benefits well-located, high-footfall destinations. Emaar's portfolio sits squarely in that description.
Who Should Actually Be Looking at Emaar Commercial Property
This is where we split the audience, because the answer is genuinely different depending on what you're trying to do.
For business owners looking for space: Emaar's commercial product offers something real that pure commercial developers struggle to match, which is footfall. If your business benefits from being inside or adjacent to a high-traffic retail or mixed-use destination, Emaar's locations are hard to beat. The lease rates reflect that premium, but so does the customer volume. For F&B operators, lifestyle retail, professional services targeting high-net-worth individuals, and financial services firms wanting a prestige address, Emaar commercial makes sense at the right unit and the right lease terms.
For investors looking at commercial returns: The yield numbers are competitive. 6.5 to 9% gross on retail and 6 to 8% on office beats most residential options in the same Emaar communities. The capital growth story has been strong. The risks are lease expiry, tenant turnover, and the ongoing supply of new commercial product across Dubai that could compress rents in specific submarkets. These are manageable risks if you're buying the right unit at the right price with a decent tenant already in place.
For residential investors tracking commercial as a leading indicator: This is probably the most underused application of this data. Where Emaar is building retail and office product tells you where they expect residential density to grow. The Oasis retail masterplan, the Creek Harbour commercial zones, the Emaar South community retail nodes. These are signposts for where residential values are heading, not where they are today.
Things to check before buying any Emaar commercial unit:
- Current occupancy status and tenant covenant quality, a vacant unit with a weak lease isn't worth paying a premium for
- Remaining lease term and renewal options, short leases with no renewal option mean re-leasing risk falls on you sooner than you think
- Service charge structure for commercial units, these can be higher than residential as a percentage of value
- Whether the unit benefits from the same owners' association protections as residential units in the same building
- Any restrictions on use class that limit what the unit can be leased for
- The development timeline for surrounding community amenities if the building is in an early-stage masterplan
For a full picture of what's currently on the market across Emaar's commercial and retail portfolio, take a look at our property listings or speak to our team directly about commercial inventory that isn't always publicly advertised.
The Bottom Line on Emaar's Commercial and Retail Play
Emaar's commercial and retail development activity within Dubai is an integral part of the value creation and sustenance within its residential masterplans, and it is now more accessible for investment and for the business owner who knows where to look.
The numbers prove out for the claims made. Retail has yields above 6.5%, office space has yields above 6%, and capital growth has exceeded that of similar non-Emaar product, with vacancy rates significantly lower than the market average. These are not projections; they are the results of completed and stabilized Emaar commercial product over the last three years.
The time period for which Emaar commercial product has been available for acquisition at pricing that is not reflective of fundamental value is coming to an end. Although not closed, the arbitrage between intrinsic and market price, which was so easy for so long and was present through 2020 and 2021, is now largely behind us. What is left is a high-quality commercial product within a growing market, now at a more reasonable price than it has been for some time, and still deserving of serious consideration for those for whom commercial real estate is part of their investment strategy.
For the business owner looking at space, the choice between lease and purchase is one that should be considered with someone who has specific knowledge of the buildings and space within each building. Not all Emaar commercial space is equal, and the difference between an excellent space and an average space within the same building can be dramatic.
For the investor, the best opportunity within Emaar's commercial product is now within communities where residential density is increasing and commercial pricing has not yet fully adjusted. Creek Harbour best represents this within the Emaar universe for 2025.
Reach out to our team and we'll tell you what's actually available, what it's priced at, and whether the numbers make sense for what you're trying to do.
