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Grovy's first branded-residence project targets Q3 2027 handover, adding a new Wyndham-flagged building to a corridor that has led Dubai's off-plan apartment sales for four consecutive months.
May 13, 2026 | Riya Malhotra | UAE | Developers
Grovy Developers has signed an agreement with Wyndham Hotels & Resorts and development partner USquare Luxe Properties to launch Ramada Residences by Wyndham at Dubai Islands.
The deal was formalised at a signing event in Dubai on 7 May, attended by Abhishek Jalan, CEO of Grovy Developers; Dimitris Manikis, President EMEA at Wyndham Hotels & Resorts; Govind Mundra, Head of Development for the Middle East and Africa at Wyndham; and Ubaid Ur Rehman Shaikh and Muhammad Umeed, co-founders of USquare Luxe Properties. Expressions of interest were registered on-site.
The project marks Grovy's entry into the branded-residences segment. The developer has operated in the UAE since 2015 with a portfolio of completed residential projects, and is positioning the Wyndham partnership as a strategic move into service-led residential product.
The development is a boutique residential building comprising one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments and four-bedroom penthouses. All units will be delivered fully furnished. Handover is scheduled for Q3 2027. The property will operate under hotel-grade service standards managed in line with Wyndham's operational protocols, and is among a limited number of buildings on Dubai Islands approved for short-term leasing, a regulatory permission that materially affects the yield profile and the addressable buyer pool.
Amenities listed include an aqua gym, golf simulator, open theatre and temperature-controlled infinity pool, alongside more than 20 leisure facilities.
Dubai Islands has emerged as the single strongest off-plan apartment corridor in 2026. The area led monthly off-plan sales by value for four consecutive months from January to April, with cumulative transactions of AED 7.9 billion across 2,335 deals by end-April, per Al Masdar Al Aqaari analysis of Dubai Land Department data. April alone recorded AED 2.6 billion across 691 transactions on the islands. The master-planned coastal development sits under the Dubai 2040 Urban Master Plan, with public beaches, green-space allocations and a direct connection to the mainland.
The Wyndham partnership extends one of the most active development categories in the UAE. Branded residences, projects where a hotel or luxury brand licenses its name and operational standards to a residential building, have grown from a niche product to a structural segment of Dubai's off-plan market. The category now spans multiple price tiers, from ultra-luxury (Aman, Baccarat, Bulgari) through to upper-midscale and midscale franchise lines such as Ramada, the flag attached to this project.
The Ramada positioning is notable. Where most recent branded launches in Dubai have targeted the AED 5 million-plus segment, the Ramada flag operates further down the price curve. Manikis described the project as "opening up the branded residences category to a broader audience through a more accessible offering." Pricing has not been disclosed publicly at the time of writing.
Two factors will determine how the project performs. First, the short-term leasing permission, only a subset of Dubai Islands buildings carry this approval, and it directly affects gross yields and the willingness of investor-buyers versus end-user buyers to enter. Second, the absorption rate against the broader Dubai Islands launch pipeline, which has expanded sharply over the past twelve months. With AED 7.9 billion in cumulative off-plan demand absorbed in the first four months of 2026, the area has been the rare Dubai sub-market where supply has been matched by sustained transaction volume rather than overshooting it.
Whether that balance holds through 2027 handovers, as a wider tranche of buildings reach completion, is the more open question for the area.
Source: Signing event press materials, Grovy Developers / Wyndham Hotels & Resorts / USquare Luxe Properties, 7 May 2026; Al Masdar Al Aqaari analysis of Dubai Land Department data, via Arabian Business and Emirates 24|7, 2 May 2026; Dubai 2040 Urban Master Plan documentation.
