Rapido

I like it, I really do. But.....

* Apartments not well finished (little things breaking)
* Tiny balconies
* The whole Plaza level/The Walk level thing. About 2 out of 100 lifts actually working.
* The Walk is a real struggle with buggies and kids bicycles. Don't even try the Marina Drive side, the pavement has more levels than a Japanese rice paddy.
* Finally, and maybe it's just our place, but the bloody toilets are very poor flushers! There's 3 in our place and believe me I've given them all a fair go.

Looking at The Links across at The Greens. Yeah, traffic problems are well documented and expected, but from what I've seen, vastly superior apartments.

The Dean

Are you renting, or do you need to find a buyer?

Rapido

Just renting Dean. Only been here 7 weeks.

Madam Medusa

i work with 3 girls who live there and love it...

MM, xx

Rapido

I'm delighted for them. My guess is that they are single girls living in apartments with properly flushing toilets and happy to drink what Starbucks laughingly calls coffee.

There's plenty to like, don't get me wrong. Just don't feel JBR is the best option for families with young children.

Foxes

the baby/pram comments thing along the walk i agree to an extent but can be done allbeit not in the most pram friendly way. but the atmosphere of the walk over the weekends is v. family friendly...a really buzzy atmosphere and the shops are packed.

bu i think JBR and the Walk is definitely going to be an excellent development in the years to come - when (if ?!) finally finished...

Hello.Kitty

they're bringing the Walk up to vaguely-DDA "standards" as we speak (well, no, they're not, but they're giving it a nudge in the right direction) - there are some wonderful retrofitting details going on for those of us who look at such things. Drop curbs, albeit in the wrong-ish places are better than none and they are actually putting ramps in the mad sets of steps.

As for the lifts, well... word on the street (from a chap in the know) is "at least the ones that are working are safe"... make of that what you will, but "budgetary cut-backs" and "lower spec alternative" may be heading in the right direction!

I'm of a firm opinion that ALL engineers (including Highways - you are also involved!), architects and urban designers should sit in a wheel-chair or push a 20kg pushchair around for a weekend and see exactly what it's like to have mobility issues.

commander

agree i was sent on a scouting mission last month to find some menus to take back from the walk to my inlaws apartment in Marina Mansions. I was avec Bugaboo and couldnt get access to half the places. Its frankly a disgrace.

Rapido

Oh yeah, it can be done all right Foxes - I do it 3 or 4 times a day.

The atmosphere is very family friendly at all times, not just weekends.

Shops? The ones on the Plaza level are generally deserted and I'm not surprised given that they're full of winter woollens. On The Walk I haven't seen many, an optician or two but mainly just various eateries - mostly American franchises. And there's only so much time you can expect a toddler to sit around for and savour the congenial ambience of the walk while you enjoy your latte.

No, by family friendly I guess I meant child-friendly, and JBR is pretty poorly served for grassed areas, shade, playgrounds (the one playground at Amwaj is pathetic and unshaded), parks etc. There's not a lot to captivate the youngsters, although the swimming pools are wonderful.

Hello.Kitty

no, they're litterally done it in the last month. They're retrofitting a ramp into the Steps of Madness by the Al Fattan Towers which should be finished in the next week of so, judging by they way they're beavering away at it.

Shame in a way, cos Mr Kitty is organising a day-trip for his landscape team - we've worked out some particularly nice routes and challenges for them to face with a loaded buggy! moihahahahahaahh!

commander

they are hardly wonderful surely?

Hello.Kitty

better than the broken-glass-lined glorified puddles you get in the UK!

commander

granted, but for dubai standard and the marina standard in general, they are pretty shit..

Hello.Kitty

basic, maybe, but a pool's a pool.

I think JBR was subject to quite a heavy-handed "value engineering" session.

Someone told me that the original QS said it couldn't be done on the budget, so "they" fired him, got in another who, after months of number-crunching came to the same conclusion. You see the results in the little things like the fact that the building lifts don't display up/down/numbers in the lobbies until they've actually arrived. The tiles in the apartments are really cheap, the wood veneers on windowsills, doors and kitchens are really, really cheap, the windows have shocking thermal insulation through the frames and... hmm, there appear to be a few hairline cracks appearing around the downstand beams in my apartment.

In all, it must have been an ambitious project that was grossly underestimated, but, like anything, if you hype it up enough, then you can't back-track.

I was wandering around the other day with the buggy and happened to overtake an estate agent doing his spiel to a couple of would-be investors: "this is the biggest residential development in the world!" and all that... so I interrupted and said "yeah, but it's shockingly bad in terms of accessibility!"... the agent managed to keep his smile... hats off to the lad!

Business as usual!

Spugsy

I hear Discovery gardens is pretty good.