Community living in the UAE has changed a lot over the last twenty years. It is no longer enough to deliver a tower with a pool and a gym and call it a day. Residents want walkable neighbourhoods, real public spaces, water, greenery, and a sense that their home is part of a bigger story.

With Tiger Downtown Ajman, Tiger Properties is taking that idea a step further in Ajman.

According to Tiger Holding and other sources, this is a lagoon-front city-scale development in Al Alia, announced with an estimated investment of around $10 billion and a plan for a central water body, 76 buildings, and more than 25 community amenities. It is being marketed as Ajman’s new downtown, but in planning terms, it is positioned as a next-generation community broadly in line with newer waterfront districts in the region.

A developer with the scale to change how communities are planned

Tiger Properties did not arrive here overnight. The company sits under Tiger Holding, founded in 1976 with a stated goal of contributing to the building of the UAE through landmark projects.

Across the holding company and its development arm, public profiles point to:

▪ Around 50 years of experience in the market

▪ 270 plus completed projects

▪ A network of roughly 40 companies and thousands of employees across development, contracting, services, and hospitality

This history matters when you move from building standalone towers to shaping a full city district. Tiger Properties has already delivered high-rise projects in Dubai, Sharjah, and Abu Dhabi. Tiger Downtown Ajman is the moment it applies that experience to a true, people-first master plan.

As Eng. Amer Waleed Al Zaabi, CEO of Tiger Properties, has framed it in launch conversations, the ambition is simple: “We did not want Tiger Downtown Ajman to be just another project on the skyline. The goal was to create a complete environment where families, professionals, and investors feel the community is working for them, not the other way around.”

A masterplan that starts with the lagoon

One distinctive aspect of Tiger Downtown Ajman’s concept is that the masterplan begins with a lagoon and then builds the city around it.

According to project information published about Tiger Downtown Ajman, the development plans for about 5,000,000 square metres of built-up area, with approximately 3,387,115 square metres allocated to residential uses. At the centre is a plan for a 13,795 square metre lagoon with a water edge of around 375 metres, treated as the anchor for the entire community.

The lagoon plan envisions:

▪ 76 buildings in total, of which 20 are lagoon-front towers, and 56 are perimeter buildings

▪ A network of walkable promenades, external and internal jogging tracks, elevated walkways, and landscaped corridors

▪ Four children’s play areas distributed across the site

The planning language here is very deliberate. This is a pedestrian-first community where cars exist, but people on foot lead. Residents will be able to move from home to lagoon, to park, to café, to nursery on continuous shaded routes rather than negotiating fragmented pavements and service roads.

From a community-living perspective, that is a step change. It acknowledges that how you move through a place is just as important as the apartment you sleep in.

Resort life as the everyday baseline

It is easy to use “resort-style” loosely in real estate, but Tiger Downtown Ajman leans into the idea with real substance.

Project information available on Tiger Holding’s website for Tiger Downtown Ajman lists more than 25 named facilities, including:

▪ Lagoon-front and infinity pools

▪ Jogging and cycling tracks that run both around and away from the water

▪ Sports courts and a multi-purpose dome for indoor activities and events

▪ Outdoor cinema and amphitheater spaces

▪ Boat dock and seating decks stepped down toward the lagoon

▪ BBQ areas, open lawns, and family parks

▪ Kids’ play zones positioned across the community

▪ Gyms, wellness areas, and steam and sauna facilities

The leisure side of the project is not a handful of small rooms tucked into a podium. It is a network of experiences spread across the master plan.

This is where the benchmark is being quietly raised. Daily life here is not meant to swing between apartment and mall. It is designed to flow between home, promenades, parks, activity spaces, and neighbourhood cafés, with the lagoon always somewhere in the background.

Community living means more than amenities

Amenities alone do not create a community. What often makes or breaks a neighbourhood is whether it supports the full range of everyday needs.

On that front, Tiger Downtown Ajman is working at multiple levels. Project details published about Tiger Downtown Ajman highlight:

▪ Retail built-up allocation of about 77,088 square metres and around 41,000 square metres of commercial space, which will support supermarkets, convenience retail, cafés, and services

▪ Community facilities such as nurseries, health centres, mosques, libraries, and a community centre.

▪ Proximity to existing schools and hospitals in the wider Ajman and Sharjah area

The intention is for this to be a community where residents can stay inside the district for much of their week. School runs, basic healthcare, everyday shopping, and leisure can all be handled within a walk or a very short drive.

In UAE terms, that is precisely what many families and professionals have been asking for: communities that function as small cities in their own right.

A globally competitive model of community living

From a distance, Tiger Downtown Ajman shares DNA with some of the better waterfront regeneration projects in Europe and further afield: water at the centre, mid to high-rise buildings stepping back from the edge, public promenades, a clear grid of streets, and a deliberate mix of uses.

In the UAE context, the project stands out in how early all of those elements are being integrated.

▪ The lagoon is being treated as core infrastructure, with engineering and excavation scheduled alongside early building phases rather than at the tail end.

▪ Phase 2 has already been defined at the masterplan level to extend the promenade, add more residential towers, and deepen the retail and community offer, with a focus on seamless pedestrian links between phases rather than isolated enclaves.

▪ The project is anchored by a developer that already works at a regional scale, with the capital and in-house capabilities to see a multi-billion-dollar community through from launch to maturity.

Conclusion

Tiger Downtown Ajman is still in its construction phase, but the framework is clear. A lagoon-centred masterplan, a resort-level amenity set, genuine walkability, and a full complement of everyday services are being brought together in one address.

If community living in the UAE is moving toward integrated, people-first districts where residents can choose their own balance of calm and connectivity, Tiger Downtown Ajman is one of the clearest indicators of what that next chapter looks like.