It has been more than a decade since the outbreak of the subprime mortgage crisis and the

Global Financial Crisis which it both preceded and caused, and while most of the devastating
impact and effects of the epidemic have faded to different extents and degrees, some ambitious
developments and projects are still enduring its consequences, especially in the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC) region. One of these projects is Amwaj Gateway in the Kingdom of
Bahrain.

Amwaj Gateway Specifications:

With an area that spans almost 34,000 square meters of land in Amwaj islands, Amwaj
Gateway is a mixed-use complex that encompasses two residential twin towers which consist of
20 floors each and house a total of 384 variant residential units, a two-storey building that
comprises 93 upscale townhouses, and a 143-key hotel tower.

The project was envisioned to play a significant role in boosting Amwaj Islands as a tourist and
investment attraction as well as encouraging the foreign investors to purchase properties in the
Kingdom of Bahrain since Amwaj Islands is a freehold area (an area where non-Bahraini
citizens are allowed to buy and own properties).

The development had the initial value of $184m upon its launch back in 2007 and it was due for
completion in 2010. However, in the aftermath of the financial crisis that shook the world in
2009, many under-construction projects in the Kingdom of Bahrain, including Amwaj Gateway
and Marina West, have been stalled.

Amwaj Gateway was then referred to Bahrain’s Judicial Committee for the Settlement of Stalled
Real Estate Projects in the year 2015. Ever since then, there have been several attempts to
auction Amwaj Gateway project - eight attempts so far, to be specific; the latest of which was
declared recently and it was held on June 2, 2019.

The unsuccessful attempts to auction Amwaj Gateway:

The first attempt to auction the project took place in October 2017, with the starting bid being
$95m; then it was delayed to the next month, November 2017, where the starting bid dropped
by around 15% from $95m to almost $81m.

The third attempt occurred near the end of the same year in December, where the initial bid
decreased by around $13.4m from $81m to $67.4m but it ended up being another unsuccessful
attempt as the auction was delayed for the third time to March 1, 2018 with the initial price being
slashed once more by another 15% from $67.4m to $59.7m.

The next trial to auction Amwaj Gateway development happened in January 2019 where the
reserve price was set at around $47.9m, cutting the original reserve price of $95m which was
set for the very first auction in 2017 by almost half.
Finally, on the eighth attempt to auction the development, Amwaj Gateway was finally sold off to
Esterad, a Bahrain-based investment firm for $38.7m, putting an end to the long-term stalled
status quo of the project.

Now that its issue has been resolved, we expect to hear more of Amwaj Gateway project and its
construction progress in the near future.