Lantana Hills: 390 townhouses, modular construction, late-2027 handover
“Dubai Holding Asset Management (DHAM)… has awarded a 680 million UAE dirhams ($185.16 million) construction contract to Group AMANA for Lantana Hills…” — Zawya Projects, 20 May 2026
What Lantana Hills actually is
Lantana Hills is a 390-townhouse gated community in Dubai Science Park, the master community in Al Barsha South that sits adjacent to Arabian Ranches 3 and Damac Hills 2. Dubai Holding Asset Management is the rental and asset-management arm of Dubai Holding, which means Lantana Hills will be built and operated rather than sold off-plan in the traditional way. Group AMANA is the main contractor, and the project will use DuBox modular units and DuPod modular bathroom pods, with approximately 85 per cent of construction completed off-site in a factory environment.
The handover date is the second half of 2027. The AED 680 million contract works out to roughly AED 1.74 million per townhouse on a pure construction-cost basis — before land cost, design fees, financing or developer margin. Total project cost will land materially higher than that; expect AED 2.2 to AED 2.8 million per unit on a fully-loaded basis.
The modular construction angle
Modular off-site construction is the part of this announcement that buyers should understand even if they never live in Lantana Hills. The numbers in the developer’s statement — 30 per cent reduction in material waste, more than 70 per cent improvement in on-site safety, 2,730 modular units and 2,020 bathroom pods manufactured in a controlled factory — describe a delivery model that Sobha, Aldar and now Dubai Holding are all moving toward in 2026-27. The implication is that the construction-pace race in the UAE is being won by developers with factory capacity.
For end-user buyers, the relevant question is not whether the construction method is modular, but whether the finished product looks and feels modular. Well-executed modular construction is indistinguishable from traditional on the inside, with the same finishes, ceiling heights and acoustic performance. Poorly-executed modular construction shows up at joints, wet areas and ceiling transitions. Dubai Science Park’s earlier DuBox-built phases offer the most useful precedent — visit those handed-over units before signing on Lantana Hills.
How this fits into Dubai Holding’s residential strategy
DHAM owns and operates 20 retail destinations and 15 residential communities, all of which are rental-led rather than sales-led. Lantana Hills extends that build-to-rent strategy into the townhouse segment, which is unusual. Most Dubai rental stock has historically been apartments — villas and townhouses sell off-plan and the operator is whoever the owner appoints. A 390-unit institutional rental townhouse community at Dubai Science Park scale will, when it stabilises in 2028, set a useful benchmark for rental yields on Arabian Ranches 3 and Damac Hills 2 freehold owners.
What Dubai Science Park looks like today
The community itself sits in the Al Barsha South corridor, with Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Road frontage and reasonable access to Al Maktoum International and Dubai Marina. It has not historically been a top-tier family villa address — the comparison is closer to Sports City or Motor City than to Arabian Ranches. The 390 townhouses will need to compete with existing freehold townhouse rental stock at Mira, Akoya and the early Damac Hills phases. Initial rental rates will likely land in the AED 145,000 to AED 190,000 per year band for three and four-bed townhouses, which is competitive but not differentiated.
The takeaway for buyers and renters
If you are a freehold buyer in Al Barsha South or the wider Arabian Ranches corridor, Lantana Hills is not for sale to you — but it will be competing for your tenants once it opens. Underwrite your rental projections in this corridor with a 5 to 10 per cent headwind on annual rent growth between 2027 and 2029 as the 390 units come online. If you are a prospective tenant, watch the leasing opening in 2027 closely — institutional rental products typically offer more transparent service-charge inclusion, longer lease terms and tighter maintenance response times than retail-let villas, and those qualitative factors can offset a higher headline rent.
For yield-stress projections on Arabian Ranches 3 and Al Barsha South villas under the new rental supply, contact our team.