Palm Central Palm Jebel Ali is about a quarter built, by its developer's own board
Every large Dubai project is described twice: once in launches and once in percentages. Nakheel publishes the second kind for Palm Jebel Ali, and it is the more useful number.
The headline figure
26.75% overall progress, as of March 2026.
By frond
Frond O leads at 37.44%, followed by N at 29.20%, K at 27.71%, L at 24.71%, M at 22.10% and P at 20.50%.
By trade, which is the more revealing cut
Substructure 93.27%. Superstructure 68.40%. Infrastructure 65.05%. Building work 21.64%. MEP 18.76%.
What that shape means
Foundations are all but finished and frames are well advanced, while the trades that turn a frame into a house — finishes and building services — are only about a fifth done. That is the normal order of construction, and it is also the reason an island that looks structurally complete from the water is still years from occupation.
Read the trade breakdown rather than the overall percentage, because the two tell different stories about time. Substructure at 93% and MEP at 19% is not a project four months from finishing; it is a project that has done the fast, heavy work and has yet to do the slow, labour-intensive part, and finishing trades are where Dubai schedules most often slip. The frond numbers are worth checking against whichever frond a particular unit sits on — a 17-point spread between Frond O and Frond P is more than a rounding difference. Note the date too: these figures are Nakheel's own and were current in March, so they understate where the island stands now by roughly two quarters of work.
Source: Nakheel checked against the source
More Palm Central news
3 km of Dubai Islands shoreline
Nakheel has awarded Mar Marine & Building Contracting the marine works on the western shoreline of Dubai Islands: about 3 km of coast, breakwaters and a new 320-metre beach beside Bay Villas, for completion in the fourth quarter of 2027. The developer's other island is where the Palm Central playbook is being run again.
Bay Grove: contractor named
Nakheel has awarded Metac a construction contract worth more than Dh800 million for Bay Grove Residences on Dubai Islands: 537 homes in seven buildings across Phases 1 and 3, due in late 2028. The whole community is 1,154 homes in fifteen buildings on Crystal Beach, by the developer of Palm Central.
Bay Estate: 360 homes on the islands
Nakheel unveiled Bay Estate on 5 October: a gated waterfront community on Dubai Islands of about 360 three- and four-bedroom homes plus plots, on 653,709 square metres with 2.4 km of beachfront and 6.5 km of waterfront, in three collections called Cala, Verda and Agora, less than 10 km from the airport: the same developer as Palm Central, on its other island.