Ernst & Young set for move to 53-storey ICD Brookfield Place in Dubai
The ICD Brookfield Place development at the Dubai International Financial Centre has booked a major new tenant: Big Four professional services firm EY.
At 53 stories and over 260 metres in height, the sleek, $1 billion Brookfield Place tower development situated in Dubai’s International Financial Centre district (DIFC) is set to become another iconic landmark of Dubai’s rich urban sky-line, featuring nearly a million square feet of commercial office space. And four of its stories will soon be home Big Four professional services firm Ernst & Young.
According to reports, EY has signed a pre-lease agreement and will move into its new office pace sometime in the third quarter of this year – presumably from its current Dubai base at the nearby 150-metre Al Saqr Business Tower – and take up four floors in the Brookfield Place development including three podium levels and a private terrace, with a dedicated reception on Al Sa’ada Street entrance.
“We are delighted that ICD Brookfield Place has attracted such a large pre-lease commitment,” said ICD Brookfield chairman and Investment Corporation of Dubai Executive Vice President Khalid Al Bakhit. “With efficient and flexible workspace alongside a fantastic selection of casual and fine dining, curated retail experiences and amenities, ICD Brookfield Place is an attractive address for an array of companies.”The ICD Brookfield Place development is a joint venture between commercial real estate developer Brookfield Property Partners, a subsidiary of the $40-plus billion revenue-pulling Brookfield Asset Management (which has some $330 billion worth of assets under management), and the state-owned sovereign wealth-fund Investment Corporation of Dubai, which achieves its own revenues in excess of $50 billion.
Altogether, the Brookfield Place development – designed by renowned British architects Foster + Partners – covers nearly 1.4 million square feet of space, with 140,000 square feet set aside for each of the green and retail areas in addition to the 900,000 square feet of premium office space up for grabs, along with the building boasting features such as 360-degree views, 46 lifts, and close to 3,000 parking spaces.
Already one of the world’s leading financial hubs, the Dubai International Financial Centre – currently home to some 2,000 companies, including Accenture, A.T. Kearney, McKinsey & Company and Strategy& among others – is about to get a whole lot bigger, with approval recently granted for tripling its size from the present 4.8 million or so square foot plot to a massive 13 million square feet of combined commercial, retail and residential space.
For EY’s part, the firm has been registered at the DIFC since 2007, shortly after the district’s launch in 2004, with the firm having established a permanent presence in the Emirates in 1966. Today, the local branches in Abu Dhabi and Dubai boast a headcount in excess of 1,000 professionals, while regionally the firm has offices covering the Middle East and North Africa from Turkey to Oman on the Arabian Peninsula across to Morocco in the north-west of Africa.