International Waterfront Real Estate Brought to You by the Worlds Largest Privately Held Developer

Have you ever heard of Palm Island. This development has been so massive and exciting that it has been featured on the History Channel’s Modern Marvels TV show. I first got a glimpse of the the project in 2002 when I was working as an Art Director at a large real estate advertising firm. I was sent an e-mail advertising the new development and I thought it was a hoax.

A developer (Nakheel is the worlds largest privately held property developer) has built an island off of the coast of Dubai in the shape of a palm tree. They literally raised the island out of the ocean. They used huge ships that draw sand up from the bottom of the ocean and then spit it out of a high pressure nozzle that sprays the sand into the air and deposit it in lumps that they build up to form islands. The development was so big that if all the fill materials used to build one Palm island were placed end to end, a wall two meters high and half a meter thick could circle the world three times. The development of this real estate project was so large that it is one of the only man made objects that can be viewed from space.

I just did an internet search on the project and it looks like it has blossomed since 2002 when I first noticed it. On Nakheel’s web site there is an interesting interactive map and time line of events for all of Nakheel’s development projects. It looks like even Donald Trump has gotten into the game with a futuristic looking hotel that will be built and marked as The Palm Trump Dubai.

If all this was not enough the success of this project has spun off another development that is called The World. Private islands are being raised out of the ocean off of the coast of Dubai. They are arranged in the shape of the continents, and encircled by a breakwater that makes the project look like a map of the globe from space. This is the only place on our planet, where You can buy a 5-20 acre man made island.

Talk about development on a grand scale!