Where construction at The Acres actually is
Every conversation about an off-plan purchase eventually reaches the same question, and it is almost always answered badly: how much of it is actually built?
The answer is not a matter of opinion. The Real Estate Regulatory Agency inspects registered projects and records a verified percentage. It is public, it is checkable, and it is the single most useful number a buyer can hold.
The number
At the inspection of 14 May 2026, RERA recorded construction progress at The Acres at 14.75%.
Not a render. Not a developer projection. A regulator’s figure, recorded on a dated inspection.
It is worth understanding what that percentage measures. RERA progress tracks the value of work completed against the total contracted scope, which means it moves slowly at the start — excavation, foundations and infrastructure absorb a great deal of time for relatively little of the contract value — and then accelerates sharply once structures start going up. A figure in the teens two years out from completion is not, on its own, a warning sign. It is what the early part of the curve looks like.
What is under contract
Meraas has awarded AED 2.4 billion in main construction contracts across the community:
- 371 villas of three to five bedrooms — delivered by United Engineering Construction
- 186 Estates residences of five to seven bedrooms — delivered by GCC Contracting
Both are established contractors operating at a scale that matches the job. That matters more than it sounds. The most common cause of a stalled Dubai project is not a developer running out of money — it is a contractor appointed beyond its capacity, and the delay is discovered eighteen months in.
Khalid Al Malik, Chief Executive of Dubai Holding Real Estate, described the award as reflecting “the strength of demand for premium villa communities in Dubai.”
The completion date, from the developer
Meraas gives estimated construction completion as August 2028, and states it on the payment plan sheets for both The Acres and The Acres Estates. The final instalment — 35% of the purchase price — falls due in the same month.
That alignment is worth noting. A payment calendar whose balloon payment lands on the stated completion month is internally consistent; a schedule that demands the final payment months before the developer expects to finish is a warning worth asking about. This one does not have that problem.
How to check it yourself
You do not need an agent for this, and you should not take one’s word for it.
The Dubai Land Department publishes project status through its own channels, and every registered off-plan project has an escrow account and a recorded progress figure. Ask for the project number, then check it. Any broker who is uncomfortable with you verifying a construction figure independently has told you something useful about themselves.
Two other things worth asking for in writing:
- Handover by phase. The community is being delivered in phases, and a completion date for the project is not the date your specific unit is ready. Ask which phase your unit sits in and what its programmed date is.
- The landscape programme. This is the one that matters most here, for reasons below.
What to watch, and it is not the buildings
Villas go up predictably. Six hundred homes built by two competent contractors on a cleared site is a well-understood exercise, and the risk of it going badly wrong is low.
The landscape is different, and at The Acres the landscape is the entire proposition.
Over 28% of the masterplan is open space. Seven programmed gardens, swimmable lagoons, wetlands, a continuous park loop connecting the neighbourhoods. All of that has to be built, planted and then given time — and time is the one input that cannot be bought. A tree takes the time it takes.
So the signals to watch during construction are:
- Infrastructure and irrigation going in early — a good sign, because it means the landscape is being treated as part of the build rather than a finishing item
- Lagoon excavation and lining — the most technically demanding element and the one most likely to move a programme
- Planting scheduled well before handover — the difference between moving into a community and moving into a construction site with a lawn
A buyer walking the site in 2028 will see the structure of all seven gardens and a fraction of the eventual canopy. That is the honest position, and anyone who tells you otherwise has not thought about how plants work.
What this means if you are buying now
Buying today means buying roughly two years of construction. That is not a reason to avoid it — it is the reason off-plan is priced the way it is — but it should be planned around rather than hoped past.
Three practical consequences:
The 35% at handover is the real test. Whether you are taking over an existing owner’s contract or buying from the developer, that payment lands in August 2028. Financing for it should be understood before signing, not arranged in 2028.
Verify progress at the point of purchase, not at the point of enquiry. RERA figures move. The number above is dated May 2026 and will be higher by the time most people read this — check the current one.
Resale supply follows the calendar. Owners who need an exit tend to look for one twelve to eighteen months before a large instalment, not after it. That is a timing observation rather than a prediction, and it is worth knowing which side of it you are on.
Construction progress is from the Real Estate Regulatory Agency inspection of 14 May 2026. Contract values, unit counts and contractors are from Dubai Holding. Estimated construction completion is as stated by Meraas on the project payment plan sheets.