Another day, another new Palm development targeting the top end of the market.

The new development in question, Alef Residences will apparently fill a niche and yet it’s hard to agree with joint executive director at ASI, Matthew J. Bate’s, analysis that “there is no supply of high-end luxury living in an integrated lifestyle development in Dubai.” Isn’t that every development that gets announced?

It’s also an odd time to be launching a new development with property prices currently not flat, but actually softening. According to Asteco Property Consultants’ quarter three 2015 report, prices for apartments on Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah dropped by 13 per cent year-on-year.

However the price points of the apartments are not just ‘top end’, they are stratospheric, and according to the developers are least, as such exist within a very different set of market dynamics. Apartments at the new development start at AED 12 million to Dh13m and rise to AED 45m to 50m.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the cost of the project will be a significant Dh2 billion. In total Qatar-based Saleh Al Hamad Al Mana Co (Al Mana) and Saudi Arabia’s Al Sharq Investment will build 104 homes as part of a hotel and serviced apartment development.

The Alef Residences will take up 505,000 square feet of a 1 million sq ft plot on Palm Jumeirah’s West Crescent, with the remainder of the project housing the new W Hotel owned by the same joint venture. It will sit next to the Kempinski Hotel & Residences.

The Alef Residences will contain eight clusters in two buildings. Each cluster will have just two apartments per floor, and five penthouses housed at the top of the buildings.

Apartments will range in size from 4,800 sq ft to 15,000 sq ft.

Residents will also have access to a private members’ club with a food & beverage unit, lounges, a gym, spa treatment rooms and a cinema.

The project is already fully funded and is under construction, with Mace as project manager, RMJM as architect and lead consultant and Al Futtaim Carillion as main contractor.

Both the W Hotel and the Alef Residences are due to complete by the end of the second quarter of 2017.