Office space in Motor City Dubai, and the commercial district taking shape there
Office space in Motor City Dubai has always been the overflow option: cheaper than Downtown, fine for a back office, never the address a company chose on purpose. A purpose-built commercial district next to the Autodrome is what changes that.
indicative at launch2,500
all offices, H1 20263,202
DIFC, Business Bay4,000+
A grade A office tower is coming to Motor City
One of three commercial launches due before the end of September 2026 sits inside O1NE District, the new commercial scheme in Motor City. Pricing, floor plates and payment terms are released by the developer on launch day. I get the price list before it reaches the portals. Everything below is the part that does not move: what the location is worth, what offices there cost today, and the questions that decide whether a launch price is fair.
Tell me you want the Motor City launch and I will send the floor plates and pricing the day they release, before the listings go live.
Get first accessWhy Motor City is suddenly getting purpose-built offices
Motor City is a mixed-use community built around the Dubai Autodrome, sitting just off Mohammed bin Zayed Road with Dubai Sports City and Dubai Studio City as neighbours. It has a large resident population, a school run, a retail spine and a genuine daytime economy. What it has never had is purpose-built grade A office space.
That gap is the whole argument. The businesses already operating out of this corner of Dubailand have been taking space in residential-podium units and converted floors, because nothing better existed inside the community. Every one of them is a potential tenant for a building designed as an office from the start, and they do not need to be persuaded to move to the area. They are already here.
The scheme going up is O1NE District, which I reviewed when it came to market: six grade A office towers by Avenew and Kora. That it is a district rather than a single tower matters, because one office building dropped into a residential community is a hard sell to a corporate tenant. A cluster with its own critical mass is a different proposition, and it is why this launch is worth a look rather than a shrug.
What offices in Motor City cost today
Two different numbers get muddled here, so it is worth separating them.
The purchase price is published. Indicative office pricing at O1NE District is around AED 2,500 per square foot, with a 50/50 construction-linked plan indicated at launch. Set that against the Dubai transacted average of AED 3,202 per square foot in H1 2026 and it is already below the citywide number, before you get anywhere near the core districts. The full workings are in my O1NE District review.
Be careful with the comparison figure, because it is quoted loosely. Prime towers in the DIFC and Business Bay do trade from around AED 4,000 per square foot and well past AED 6,500, but that is the premium end. The average office in Business Bay sells for a great deal less than that, so a headline that pits AED 2,500 against AED 6,500 is comparing a launch price to the top of another market. The comparison that holds up is the one above: below the citywide average, at a meaningful discount to prime.
The rent benchmark is not. CBRE, Savills and the rest publish quarterly office rents for Downtown, the DIFC, Business Bay and the free zones. None of them break out Motor City, because until now there has been no purpose-built office stock here to track. Portal listings fill the gap badly: 92 commercial listings spanning roughly AED 1,399 a year for a small unit to about AED 300,000 for larger space, which is a spread of very different products rather than a market rate.
That matters because a yield is a price and a rent. You can price the purchase with confidence. You cannot yet price the rent off published research, so the rental assumption has to come from what comparable occupiers in this community are actually paying, unit by unit. Against a citywide backdrop of 94 percent occupancy, rents up 13 percent year on year, and market rents flat at AED 238 per square foot in Q2 2026, the first quarter without growth since 2021, that is a solvable problem, but it is not one a headline number solves for you.
What I will check when the price list lands
This is the part worth keeping, because it applies whatever the numbers turn out to be.
Price per sqft against the submarket, not the city
The entry price is the easy part: roughly AED 2,500 per square foot at launch, below the AED 3,202 Dubai average. The harder question is the rent that price has to yield against, and that has to come from local occupiers rather than a citywide number.
Whether it is genuinely grade A
Floor plate efficiency, floor-to-floor height, lift performance and parking ratio are what separate a building that commands a premium from one competing on price with the podium units next door.
The fit out position
New office space is usually delivered shell and core, which is capital expenditure before the space earns anything. If it is shell and core, that cost belongs in your entry price, not in a footnote.
The payment plan
On an off-plan office the plan matters as much as the headline, and 5 percent VAT lands on each instalment as it falls due. My commercial property guide sets out the full cost stack.
Questions I get about offices in Motor City
Is Motor City a good place to buy an office?+
How much does office space in Motor City Dubai cost to rent?+
What is O1NE District?+
When does the Motor City office launch and what does it cost?+
Should I buy in Motor City or on Sheikh Zayed Road?+
Sources
- Bayut, commercial listings for rent in Motor City, listing count and asking-rent range, accessed 12 September 2026. No research house publishes a Motor City office benchmark.
- Ask Zeyad, O1NE District Motor City review, for the six-tower scheme, its developers, the indicative price per square foot and the payment plan. The AED 2,500 figure was re-checked against independent listing sources on 12 September 2026.
- Savills Middle East, Dubai Office Market Q2 2026, average market rent, via Khaleej Times, 22 July 2026.
- CBRE UAE Real Estate Market Review Q2 2026, office rent growth and occupancy.
- Anarock Group via Khaleej Times, Dubai office transaction data for H1 2026, published 18 August 2026.
Figures last checked 12 September 2026. Written by Zeyad Eid, senior UAE property advisor. No pricing for the launch is published here because the developer has not released it.
Work the numbers with Zeyad
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