Aldar opens Saadiyat Grove with three museums as anchor, not a mall
Chief retail officer Saoud Khoory says the sightline to three museums, not a department store, is what sold more than 100 brands on the site.
Aldar is opening Saadiyat Grove, a luxury retail district in Abu Dhabi, in the fourth quarter of 2026 with more than 100 brands and no department store at its centre. Its anchor instead is a sightline: from the central atrium, visitors can turn to see the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, the Louvre Abu Dhabi and the Zayed National Museum.
What the tenant list looks like
The roster includes Audemars Piguet, Brunello Cucinelli, Bulgari, Cartier, Chaumet, Dior, Fendi, Loewe, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany and Co. and Van Cleef and Arpels. Aldar's chief retail officer, Saoud Khoory, told WWD that the museum sightline, not conventional footfall drivers, was what the developer sold tenants on before settling the tenant mix.
"Before we put together the tenant mix, the vision was the most important thing we wanted to sell to the tenants," Khoory said. Aldar needed a reason for brands to choose Abu Dhabi over rival luxury markets, and it built the pitch around culture rather than square footage.
Khoory said Aldar has lined up twenty concepts that will trade in the region for the first time, spanning fourteen new restaurants and six entertainment and retail names. Among them is Beams, the Tokyo culture and lifestyle shop, opening its first store anywhere outside Asia.
What the brands are building
Fendi is installing what Khoory called "the world's first Fendi cinema within a retail store", a multiuse space for screenings, podcasts and brand storytelling. Audemars Piguet is unveiling a global boutique concept inspired by Le Brassus, its historic home in the Vallée de Joux.
Chaumet will use a world-first immersive display to spotlight its tiara-making legacy, and Loewe is opening its first personalisation bar in the region. Louis Vuitton is planning facade finishes that Khoory said the house has never attempted before, and Cartier's store will focus on regional stories and local artists.
Khoory said some tenants dedicated space to content rather than product, a departure from the footage calculations that have historically governed luxury flagships. "Once they saw the scale and understood the impact, they were open to doing something they've never done before," he said.
What hospitality and wellness add to the mix
Khoory ranks hospitality above every other element of the project, describing it as the connective tissue that runs through the whole district. He pointed to Emirati welcome rituals, from the way coffee is served to how visitors are guided round, as details Aldar built in deliberately.
There is no conventional food court. Instead Aldar has built an upmarket food hall alongside a curated restaurant mix: Alain Ducasse Café, the Bocuse brasserie format Monsieur Paul, Kokoro Handroll Bar and David Chang's Momofuku group all feature among the openings.
Abu Dhabi's first Time Out Market will gather sixteen kitchens from the city's chefs and homegrown operators, while Gymkhana, Barrafina and Le Palais extend the food offer next door at Louvre Abu Dhabi Residences. Khoory said many of the local concepts are affordable fast casual.
Wellness is the development's other strategic pillar, which Khoory called "the next phase of luxury". BXR, the London gym backed by the boxer Anthony Joshua, is taking 21,500 square feet for its first Middle East flagship, alongside a wellness centre and a longevity clinic.
The scale of the development
At the centre of Saadiyat Grove is Saadiyat Forum, a 75,000 square foot transformable venue for cultural programming, next to a 23,700 square foot executive club and 269,000 square feet of office space above the retail floors.
More than 1,000 homes across Louvre Abu Dhabi Residences, Baccarat Residences Saadiyat and The Arthouse are due for handover in the coming months. Khoory expects the resulting resident base to balance evenly against tourist visitors once the district is fully operating.
The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi itself debuts in December, later than the retail district's fourth-quarter opening, meaning Saadiyat Grove will trade for a period before its full three-museum sightline is complete. Aldar has said the opening will be staged rather than fully leased on day one.
Khoory said Aldar is watching global retail formats for cues, citing Bal Harbour in Miami and K11 in Hong Kong as reference points. "The balance is trying new things while making sure we are always catering to the customer," he said, adding the tenant mix will keep evolving after launch.
The bet lands as the wider luxury retail industry pulls back rather than expands. We reported that luxury store openings in the United States fell 46% as brands chose fewer, bigger flagships over broad rollouts, the same logic Aldar is applying by concentrating on one culturally anchored site.
It also arrives as conventional department stores rethink their own anchor role. Selfridges' chief executive André Maeder has set out a strategy built on curation rather than scale, and we found contemporary and premium labels now make up 31% of department store fashion floors, the segment Saadiyat Grove is designed to bypass entirely.
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Image: Aldar