Berkeley Tower by Ellington price, payment plan: Grade A offices by Business Bay metro on a 70/30 plan

Ellington Properties and Al Hamra Group have unveiled Berkeley Tower, a 60 floor Grade A office tower on Sheikh Zayed Road in Business Bay, next to Business Bay metro station. The project is valued at Dh2.8 billion, sales are expected to open at the end of October or early November 2026, and the indicative price is Dh4,500 to Dh5,000 a sq ft.

Below: the office sizes, the 70/30 payment plan instalment by instalment, the full cost of the smallest office, how the price compares with registered sales of new offices in Business Bay, and the rent the building needs to earn a sensible yield.

Berkeley Tower at a glance

• Developer: Ellington Properties, in partnership with Al Hamra Group of Ras Al Khaimah.
• Location: Sheikh Zayed Road, Business Bay, steps from Business Bay metro station.
• Building: ground plus 60 floors, 53 of them offices, over six basements.
• Offices: 109, from 1,132 sq ft up to a 22,191 sq ft triplex.
• Indicative price: Dh4,500 to Dh5,000 a sq ft, not yet confirmed.
• Payment plan: 70/30, with 30% on completion.
• Handover: brokers quote Q1 2030; the completion date registered with the Dubai Land Department is 31 December 2031.
• Service charge: about Dh24 a sq ft a year, the developer's estimate.
• Tenure: freehold for all nationalities. 4% DLD fee, plus 5% VAT on the price.

Berkeley Tower price list

Ellington has not issued an official price list yet. The project brief sent to its authorised brokers gives an indicative Dh4,500 to Dh5,000 a sq ft and marks it as subject to confirmation. Here is the full cost of the smallest office at both ends of that range.

And the indicative price of each office type on the same range:

The expression of interest is a minimum of Dh100,000 for one office, Dh150,000 for a quarter floor, Dh300,000 for a half floor and Dh500,000 for a full floor. Get the refund terms in writing, in case you do not get the office you want.

VAT applies to every commercial sale, on top of the price. Commercial rent is standard rated too, so if you let the office and register with the Federal Tax Authority you can usually reclaim it. Take tax advice on whether to buy in your own name or through a company.

Floor plans and office sizes: a building for bigger companies

The sellable area is about 579,681 sq ft. Spread over 109 offices, that is an average of about 5,300 sq ft each. Savills found that two thirds of Dubai office leases in Q3 2026 were for less than 1,000 sq ft. Even Berkeley's smallest office is bigger than what most Dubai tenants rent. This building is designed for companies that want a headquarters or a regional office at a Grade A address.

Floor to floor heights run from 3.8 to 4.1 metres, and the double height lobby covers about 4,015 sq ft. Floors are sold as single offices, quarter floors, half floors or full floors, and some offices have terraces; the triplex terrace reaches 7,363 sq ft. If you want the floor plan for a particular office type, ask me for it.

Berkeley Tower payment plan, instalment by instalment

For the smallest office at the middle of the range, Dh5,377,000, you pay Dh1,075,400 on booking plus Dh215,080 in DLD fees. Each 5% instalment is Dh268,850. By the end of the first year you have paid Dh2,150,800. By 70% construction you have paid Dh3,763,900, and Dh1,613,100 is left for handover.

That is 40% of the price in year one, double the 20% that a 50/50 plan like the Rockefeller Tower's takes in the same period. In return, only 30% is due at handover. The six later instalments are tied to construction progress, so if the site slows, so do your payments. That protects the buyer, and I explain how in construction-linked payment plans.

Berkeley Tower handover date: two dates on the table

Brokers quote Q1 2030 and a build of about three and a half years. Ellington itself has not announced a date. The project was registered with DLD on 13 October 2026, and the completion date on that registration is 31 December 2031. Developers often register a cautious date, but the one that binds is the date in your SPA. Compare it with the registered date in Dubai REST, and do not count on rent before 2030.

Berkeley Tower amenities, in full

• Mezzanine: coffee bar and lounge.
• Level 32: co-working area, focus pods, work lounge, social hub, rest and recharge room.
• Level 33: clubhouse with a vinyl lounge, billiards, air hockey, gaming lounge, terrace and a drone delivery port.
• Level 34: fitness studio, boxing area, spin, Pilates, a mind and body studio, separate male and female wellness rooms.
• Level 35: male and female prayer rooms.
• Building: 12 double deck passenger lifts with destination control, robotic parking across six basements, EV charging and bicycle racks.
• Roof: provision for a future air taxi vertiport.

Read the last two carefully. No vertiport is being built; Ellington has made provision for one. Drone delivery depends on permits that do not exist yet. Neither is a reason to buy. What tenants actually pay for is the metro on the doorstep, fast lifts and parking that does not keep staff waiting. The building is designed to Dubai's Al Sa'fat green building standard.

Location: Business Bay connectivity and drive times

The tower sits next to Business Bay station on the Red Line. Drive times are Ellington's own.

For an office tower, a station you can walk to is the line in that table that matters most. A company whose staff commute by metro pays for it, and it is an advantage that does not wear off.

Berkeley Tower price per sq ft vs new Business Bay offices

On 6 May 2026, 32 Business Bay offices worth Dh646 million were registered with DLD in a single day, mostly at Omniyat's Lumena and at HQ by Rove. I calculated the price per sq ft from the registered values and areas.

At Dh4,750, the middle of its range, Berkeley sits about 14% below Lumena's registered average and about 2% above HQ by Rove. The indicative price is in line with the new office market around it. There is no launch discount in it.

Rental yield: the rent it needs

Office demand in Dubai is strong. JLL put vacancy at 6.1% in Q2 2026, with Grade A rents up 26.2% over the year. Savills put the citywide average rent at about Dh241 a sq ft a year in Q3.

Net yields at Dh4,750 a sq ft, with the 4% DLD fee added to the price and the Dh24 service charge taken off the rent. Vacancy, agency fees and fit-out are not included, and VAT is assumed recoverable.

Berkeley's Dh24 service charge is higher than the Dh18 estimate at Rockefeller, which costs about 0.1 percentage points of net yield at the same rent. On the other side, I see fewer owners as an advantage. With 109 offices and much of the tower sold as half and full floors, a large share of the building will go to companies that move in themselves, and a building whose owners work in it is usually better looked after. Try your own figures in the net yield calculator.

Golden visa through an office purchase

The smallest office here costs more than Dh5 million, and a property worth Dh2 million or more can support a 10 year golden visa. The off-plan rules, and how to buy from abroad, are in my golden visa guide.

Ellington Properties track record, and Al Hamra

Ellington has been building since 2014 and is known for design-led residential projects, among them Belgravia in Jumeirah Village Circle and DT1 in Downtown Dubai. Berkeley is its largest and tallest commercial project to date. Its partner, Al Hamra Group, is a Ras Al Khaimah developer working across residential, retail, hospitality and leisure.

Ellington's residential delivery record is good. A 60 floor office tower with robotic parking and double deck lifts is a more complex build, which makes the handover date and the delay terms in the SPA matter more here than usual.

What I would check before booking

• The official price of your office in writing, and which floors and views the Dh4,500 to Dh5,000 range covers.
• The EOI refund terms, in writing.
• The handover date in the SPA, set against the gap between Q1 2030 and 31 December 2031.
• Whether VAT is collected with each instalment or in one payment.
• Whether offices are delivered shell and core or fitted.
• The final service charge, and whether the robotic parking and amenities are inside it or billed separately.
• How many parking spaces come with each office.
• How much must be paid before you can resell before handover.

My take

Berkeley Tower makes sense for a company that wants its headquarters on Sheikh Zayed Road with a metro station at the door. Ellington is behind it, the floor heights suit Grade A offices, and full floors and multi-floor offices are scarce in this part of the city. For an investor the 70/30 plan is heavier: 40% in the first year, and rent from 2030 at the earliest.

At Dh4,750 the smallest office yields about 4.4% net at today's rents and needs about Dh320 a foot for 6%. If the official price lands near Dh4,500, it is fairly priced against Lumena's registered sales. If it lands at Dh5,000, I think it suits a company buying for its own use more than an investor buying for rent.

If you want the official price list on the day it is released, the floor plans or the EOI form, message me.

Sources: Ellington Properties' official project page (October 2026) and the Ellington and Al Hamra announcement via Gulf News and Arabian Business. Office count and sizes, indicative price, service charge, EOI amounts and payment plan from the project brief as published by authorised brokers. DLD registration date via Luxwell. Lumena and HQ by Rove sales from Dubai REST data reported by Gulf Today (6 May 2026), price per sq ft calculated by me. Rents and lease sizes from Savills' Q3 2026 Dubai office report. Vacancy and Grade A rent growth from JLL's Q2 2026 report.