Dubai Square: Creek Harbour's retail centrepiece slipped a decade to 2028

Dubai Square was unveiled in 2018 as the retail heart of Dubai Creek Harbour, the AED180bn ($49bn) Emaar-Dubai Holding district on the creek: about 2.6 million square metres of retail, dining, entertainment and technology-led experiences, a large indoor city next to the planned Dubai Creek Tower. No opening came. By 2024 Emaar had revised the plans, and the project surfaced again only in December 2025 — rebranded as the 'world's first drive-through mall'.

The 2026 relaunch toured journalists through a parking concept instead of a mall: fully air-conditioned, interior-designed parking with ceilings, lighting and wayfinding, 'the first and last five minutes' of the visit. 'Parking should be comfortable, intuitive and beautifully designed — not an afterthought,' Mohamed Alabbar said in September 2026. Gulf News reported the destination is 'currently expected to open in 2028' — roughly a decade after it was first announced, with Dubai Creek Tower itself still unbuilt.

The slip tracks a wider re-think of Creek Harbour, which pivoted from a futuristic retail-and-tower district to selling residences and hotels that pay for themselves. Dubai Square's 2018 premise — huge anchored retail before the residents arrive — did not survive that economics test, and the 2025 relaunch quietly inverted it: drive-through access and parking-led design assume a car-borne customer base rather than the walkable smart city first sold.

Opening target drifted from the 2018 launch to 2028 — about ten years; the relaunch pitch is now air-conditioned parking, not the original tech-retail city.

Anchored retail was planned ahead of the district's population: with few residents at Creek Harbour, the tenant economics of a 2.6m sq m retail city never closed.

The master plan depended on Dubai Creek Tower and other unbuilt anchors, so every delay in the wider district compounded the mall's own.

Seven years of silence followed the 2018 launch instead of a staged, fundable first phase — the 2024 revision came only after the original concept had aged out.

The relaunch sold features (air-conditioned drive-through parking) rather than a revised completion plan, keeping the promise soft: 'expected to open in 2028'.

A megaproject's first announcement prices in a market that may not exist when construction starts. Re-scope for the market you have instead of re-launching the dream with new slogans.

As of September 2026 Dubai Square is marketed with Alabbar's parking vision and a 2028 expected opening, ten years on from announcement. Gulf News lists it among nine malls 'coming soon' to Dubai, alongside a Dh1.5bn Dubai Mall expansion and a Dh5bn Mall of the Emirates redevelopment — competition the 2018 concept never had to face. Creek Harbour continues to be built out around it, and the air-conditioned parking remains, for now, a rendered vision rather than a delivered structure.