The Bridges, Shams Abu Dhabi:

Complete Residents’ & Buyers’ Guide (2026)

The Bridges:

Aldar’s Vision of Community-First Living

Every generation of a city’s residential buildings reflects what its developers have learned from the generation before. The Bridges — Aldar Properties’ most recent major residential development in Shams Abu Dhabi — is the clearest expression yet of what Abu Dhabi’s most experienced island developer has learned from fifteen years of building, managing, and listening to the residents of Al Reem Island. It is a development shaped not only by architectural ambition but by accumulated knowledge: of how people actually use shared outdoor spaces, of which building specifications residents appreciate most in the long run, of what makes a high-rise residential community feel genuinely alive rather than merely occupied. The result is a development that stands apart from everything built on the island before it — not by virtue of being the tallest or the most dramatic, but by being the most thoughtfully conceived at the scale of daily life.

The defining idea of The Bridges is expressed in its name. The buildings are connected by a network of elevated pedestrian walkways — the bridges — that span between towers at podium level, creating a shared outdoor community at height that encourages spontaneous movement, encounter, and activation between residents of different towers within the development. This bridge network is not merely a circulation system. It is social infrastructure: wide enough to pause and sit, landscaped with planting that provides shade and texture, furnished with seating that invites residents to slow down rather than simply pass through. The message the design sends to its residents is clear and generous: the space between your building and the next is yours too, not just a gap to cross but a place to inhabit.

The Bridges is developed and managed by Aldar Properties under its established residential management framework — the same institutional platform that manages Sky Tower, Sun Tower, and the Gate Towers complex. The consistency of Aldar’s management across the sub-district means that residents of The Bridges benefit from the same management quality and accountability that the island’s most established buildings deliver, while also enjoying the practical advantages of newer infrastructure: building systems, finishes, and specifications that reflect current standards rather than those of a decade ago.

The Bridges sets a new benchmark for shared amenity and community design on Al Reem Island — a development where the spaces between towers are as carefully conceived as the apartments within them.

Design Philosophy: Putting the Podium at the Centre

The conventional approach to residential tower design places the building’s amenity in service of the apartments: the pool exists so that residents of the tower have somewhere to swim; the gym exists so they have somewhere to exercise. The Bridges inverts this logic in an important way. Here, the elevated podium — the shared outdoor world between the towers — is the primary design act, and the towers rise from it as components of a larger community rather than as self-contained objects that happen to share a site. The towers are arranged around and above the podium to maximise its exposure, its views, and its social potential; the bridges between them are positioned to create natural routes through the outdoor space that make incidental encounter between residents of different towers a routine rather than an exception.

This shift of emphasis from tower to community reflects something that Aldar’s fifteen years on Al Reem Island have made empirically clear: residents of Abu Dhabi’s island communities consistently rate their shared outdoor spaces among the features they value most about island living. The Shams Abu Dhabi waterfront promenade — the sub-district’s defining common space — is cited more frequently than any individual building amenity as the reason residents choose Shams over other parts of the island. The Bridges takes this lesson and applies it at the building scale: designing the shared outdoor environment with the same care and investment that the promenade represents at the neighbourhood scale, and bringing it into the body of the development where residents can access it from their front door rather than from the ground floor of the building.

The architectural language of The Bridges’ towers is contemporary and refined — a marked evolution from the angular, high-contrast facade aesthetic of the first-generation Shams towers. The exteriors use a higher proportion of glazing to wall area, bringing more natural light into apartments and creating a more transparent relationship between interior and exterior. The facade detailing is cleaner and less visually busy than the ribbed aluminium panelling of Sky Tower and the Gate Towers, reflecting a maturing aesthetic sensibility that favours proportion and material quality over the bold graphic statements that characterised the island’s early supertall ambitions. The result is a development that reads as elegant and assured rather than assertive — a building that knows it does not need to shout.

The Infinity Pool & The Outdoor Experience

The Infinity Pool

The Bridges’ infinity pool is one of the most photographed residential amenities on Al Reem Island and, for residents, one of the most consistently used. Set at the elevated podium level with its vanishing edge extending toward the north and the Arabian Gulf beyond, the pool creates a view experience from within the water that is the design ambition of every infinity pool ever built — the sense of floating at the edge of the city with the open sea directly ahead — delivered with particular success here because the building’s orientation and the podium’s height above the surrounding promenade provide an open, unobstructed view horizon that urban-site infinity pools frequently cannot achieve.

The pool is designed for active swimming as well as leisure — its dimensions make lap swimming practical for residents who use the pool as a fitness tool rather than solely as a leisure setting. The pool deck and surrounding terrace area are furnished to a standard that residents consistently describe as being closer to a boutique hotel pool environment than to a conventional residential building communal area: sun loungers in both exposed and shaded configurations, outdoor seating and table arrangements for socialising beside the water, and landscaping that provides texture and greenery around the pool perimeter. The pool is heated through the cooler months, making it usable year-round — an important consideration in a city where October through April provides ideal outdoor swimming conditions that, in a heated pool, can extend into the summer months as a pre-dawn or evening activity.

The Bridge Walkways & Landscape

The elevated bridge walkways that connect The Bridges’ towers at podium level are the development’s most distinctive spatial feature — and the one that differentiates it most clearly from every other residential building on Al Reem Island. These are not corridors or enclosed links: they are open-air outdoor spaces, landscaped and furnished, that extend the living environment of each tower outward into a shared elevated landscape. Planting along the bridge edges provides shade and visual softness; seating integrated into the bridge design creates places to pause and look out over the promenade and the Gulf; and the sequence of views as a resident walks from their tower across the bridge and into the adjacent podium spaces creates a miniature promenade experience that is distinct from, and complementary to, the waterfront promenade below.

The practical effect of the bridge layout is to expand the effective outdoor territory of each resident beyond the area immediately surrounding their own tower. A resident in Tower A of The Bridges has direct access to the outdoor spaces of Towers B and C through the bridge network — and because those spaces face different directions and catch different light at different times of day, the bridge network provides a variety of outdoor environments that a single-tower building with a single-orientation podium cannot replicate. The morning sun on the eastern bridge, the late afternoon shade on the western walkway, the full Gulf panorama from the northernmost bridge terrace — these are the small pleasures of a well-designed outdoor residential environment that accumulate over the months and years of a tenancy into a strong and consistent appreciation for the building.

Additional Outdoor Amenities

Beyond the infinity pool and the bridge walkways, The Bridges’ elevated podium incorporates a full suite of outdoor amenity areas: a children’s play zone with age-appropriate equipment and soft surfaces integrated into the landscape rather than relegated to a residual corner of the site; an outdoor fitness area with exercise stations and functional training equipment for residents who prefer to work out in the open air; BBQ and outdoor dining pavilions with cooking facilities, worktops, and social seating for resident gatherings, family barbecues, and the kind of spontaneous communal entertaining that shared outdoor spaces enable; and a variety of landscaped garden areas with shaded seating that provide quiet, green refuges for reading, conversation, or simply sitting with the view. The ambition of this outdoor programme is to make the podium a destination that residents visit for multiple different purposes throughout the week, rather than a space they pass through on the way somewhere else.

Apartment Specification: The Newer-Build Advantage

One of The Bridges’ most tangible advantages over the first-generation Shams Abu Dhabi buildings is the currency of its physical specification. Where Sky Tower, Sun Tower, and the Gate Towers were finished to the standards of the early-to-mid 2010s, The Bridges reflects specifications developed a decade later — and the decade between those two periods in Abu Dhabi’s residential market brought meaningful changes to what quality-conscious tenants and buyers consider the baseline for a well-specified apartment.

In kitchens, this newer specification expresses itself in appliances from premium European brands (rather than the entry-level white goods that characterised earlier Abu Dhabi residential towers), stone or engineered stone worktops with deeper, more practical dimensions, improved cabinet quality with soft-close hinges and drawer systems, and kitchen layouts that reflect how people actually cook — with adequate worktop run, integrated appliance placement, and storage at the right heights. In bathrooms, the improvement is similarly clear: larger format tiles, frameless shower enclosures, wall-hung sanitary ware, and better-quality tapware and shower systems that feel premium in daily use rather than adequate on a brief viewing.

The glazing specification in The Bridges’ apartments uses larger window-to-wall ratios than the first-generation towers, bringing more natural light into living spaces and creating a more open, visually connected relationship between inside and outside. High-performance double-glazed units provide both thermal insulation — reducing cooling load and therefore chiller costs relative to older single-glazed or thinner-glazed equivalents — and acoustic separation from the external environment. The overall effect is an apartment that feels brighter, more spacious, and more contemporary than equivalently-sized units in the older Shams buildings, a difference that is immediately apparent on viewing and that sustains its appeal over the full duration of a tenancy.

Storage provision in The Bridges is notably improved over the first-generation buildings. Many two and three-bedroom units include separate laundry rooms — a practical specification detail that families and long-term residents value highly, as it removes the laundry function from the kitchen or the balcony (common in older units) and gives it a dedicated, properly ventilated space. Walk-in wardrobes in the master bedrooms of larger configurations, utility cupboards with shelving in hallways, and built-in storage in living areas all reflect a specification developed with the actual storage needs of households in mind rather than minimised to reduce construction cost.

Unit Types, Floor Plans & Configuration

The Bridges contains residential apartments across multiple towers of varying heights, with studio, one-bedroom, two-bedroom, and three-bedroom configurations distributed across the floor range. Because the development consists of several interconnected buildings rather than a single tower, the floor-to-ceiling number varies across the development — some towers are taller than others — but all towers connect to the same shared podium infrastructure and all residents have equal access to all shared amenities regardless of which specific tower their apartment is in.

Studios (approx. 440–620 sq ft): Well-proportioned studio apartments with open-plan kitchen and living areas, full bathroom, and — in many configurations — a generous balcony that extends the living space outward toward the podium landscape. The studio specification at The Bridges, with its newer kitchen appliances and bathroom fittings, represents a meaningful quality step above equivalent studios in older Shams buildings at comparable price points.

1-Bedroom Apartments (approx. 780–1,000 sq ft): The development’s most in-demand configuration for both tenants and buyers. Bedroom dimensions are generous enough for a king-size bed and fitted wardrobe without space compromise; living rooms accommodate a full sofa arrangement and dining table; and the kitchen in most one-bedroom configurations is a separate enclosed or semi-enclosed room rather than a galley layout, giving cooking and living areas proper physical separation. Gulf-view one-bedrooms at the upper floors of the taller towers are The Bridges’ most sought-after rental product and let very quickly during peak demand periods.

2-Bedroom Apartments (approx. 1,100–1,500 sq ft): Strong demand from professional couples, small families, and work-from-home residents. The two-bedroom configurations in The Bridges are distinguished by their improved storage — dedicated laundry rooms in many layouts, larger built-in wardrobe provision — and by living areas that feel genuinely spacious rather than efficiently compact. These are apartments designed to be lived in for two or three years rather than passed through in twelve months.

3-Bedroom Apartments (approx. 1,600–2,200 sq ft): The Bridges’ three-bedroom apartments represent the development’s most premium residential offer and are consistently among the most sought-after three-bedroom units in Shams Abu Dhabi. The newer specification — in particular the kitchen quality, bathroom fittings, and storage provision — gives these apartments a practical quality of life advantage over equivalent-sized three-bedrooms in the older island buildings that family residents who have made the comparison consistently and enthusiastically confirm.

Buying Property at The Bridges: The 2026 Market

The Bridges commands a premium over the first-generation Shams Abu Dhabi buildings in both the purchase and rental markets — a premium that reflects genuine and daily-appreciable advantages in specification quality, amenity richness, and the newer physical condition of the building fabric. This premium is most pronounced in the two and three-bedroom segments, where the specification improvements — kitchen quality, bathroom fittings, storage provision, laundry rooms — are most materially felt in daily life, and least pronounced in the studio segment where the primary decision drivers are floor level and view orientation rather than specification nuance.

The development is fully freehold for all nationalities. All transactions are registered with Abu Dhabi’s Department of Municipalities and Transport (DMT). Standard Abu Dhabi transaction costs apply: 2% registration fee, approximately 2% agency commission, and 1–1.5% in ancillary conveyancing and administrative costs, for a total of 5–6% for cash buyers.

Indicative Sale Prices — The Bridges (2026)

Studios: AED 400,000 – AED 680,000. The Bridges’ studios reflect their newer specification in their pricing relative to first-generation Shams studios — a premium that buyers and investors confirm is justified by the improved finishes, the superior shared amenity access, and the reduced near-term maintenance risk of a newer building.

1-Bedroom Apartments: AED 700,000 – AED 1,200,000. Gulf-view one-bedrooms at the upper floors of the taller towers within the development reach the upper end of this range and represent some of the strongest investment performance in the Shams Abu Dhabi market on a gross yield basis.

2-Bedroom Apartments: AED 1,080,000 – AED 2,050,000. The two-bedroom segment at The Bridges is the development’s most actively transacted, attracting both end-user families who have specifically sought the building’s newer specification and investors who recognise the stronger tenant retention that quality-motivated tenants produce.

3-Bedroom Apartments: AED 1,650,000 – AED 2,950,000. Among the most sought-after three-bedroom products on the island, consistently achieving the highest absolute three-bedroom rents in Shams Abu Dhabi when well-positioned units are available at competitive prices.

Service Charges

Service charges at The Bridges run at approximately AED 16–21 per square foot per year — at the higher end for Shams Abu Dhabi, reflecting the elevated amenity infrastructure of the development: the infinity pool and its dedicated maintenance programme, the landscaped bridge walkways, the extensive outdoor programme, the BBQ pavilions, the outdoor gym, and the children’s play areas all contribute to a shared facility cost that is meaningfully above that of the older first-generation buildings. Residents and investors who have considered this in the context of the overall value proposition consistently find the service charge justified by the quality of what it funds. Net investment yields at The Bridges after service charges run approximately 5.5%–6.5% depending on unit type, floor level, and orientation.

Golden Visa Eligibility

The Bridges’ upper two-bedroom and three-bedroom segments provide qualifying options for UAE Golden Visa eligibility — the long-term residency programme requiring a minimum AED 2,000,000 investment in completed freehold property. For professionals in Abu Dhabi on employer-sponsored visas who are making a long-term commitment to the city, a qualifying purchase at The Bridges combines residency security with the practical quality of one of the island’s finest residential environments. The newer building specification means that the investment carries less near-term maintenance and renovation risk than an equivalent Golden Visa investment in an older building, and the development’s strong rental performance provides a reliable income stream should the owner’s circumstances change. The Best Areas for Investment in Abu Dhabi guide provides context on how The Bridges sits within the broader Abu Dhabi City investment landscape.

Renting at The Bridges: The 2026 Market

The Bridges’ rental market benefits from a tenant pool that is notably motivated and self-selected. Tenants who specifically shortlist The Bridges have typically researched Shams Abu Dhabi thoroughly, have compared it with the older buildings in the sub-district, and have concluded that the newer specification and the superior shared amenity justify the additional rental outlay. This motivation produces a tenant profile — typically well-established professionals with strong income stability, or families with specific specification requirements — whose occupancy behaviour is consistently positive for landlords: longer tenancy durations, more reliable rent payment, and more careful treatment of the apartment than the open market average.

Corporate relocation agents place The Bridges at the top of their shortlists for incoming expatriates who have been briefed by their employers to find the newest and best-equipped residential option in Shams Abu Dhabi. For senior corporate incomers whose housing budget reflects a premium positioning mandate from their employer, The Bridges’ specification and amenity standard meet and exceed the expectation set by international financial centre residential markets worldwide — a quality that is increasingly important as Abu Dhabi’s corporate inflow includes more and more professionals with previous postings in London, Singapore, New York, and Hong Kong who carry those markets’ quality standards as their reference point.

Indicative Annual Rents — The Bridges (2026)

Studios: AED 43,000 – AED 70,000 per year.

1-Bedroom Apartments: AED 74,000 – AED 104,000 per year. High-floor Gulf-view one-bedrooms are the development’s most sought-after rental product and achieve the upper end of the Shams Abu Dhabi one-bedroom range.

2-Bedroom Apartments: AED 108,000 – AED 166,000 per year.

3-Bedroom Apartments: AED 155,000 – AED 220,000 per year. Three-bedroom rents at The Bridges represent the highest achieved three-bedroom rents in Shams Abu Dhabi and among the highest on Al Reem Island outside of the most premium upper-floor Sky Tower units.

District cooling (chiller) is billed separately from stated rents. Annual chiller costs vary by unit size and usage: studios typically budget AED 8,000–14,000; one-bedrooms AED 12,000–19,000; two-bedrooms AED 16,000–25,000; three-bedrooms AED 22,000–33,000. The district cooling system provides consistent, noise-free, maintenance-free cooling with all equipment responsibility borne by the building operator. Tenancy registration is via Tawtheeq; payment by post-dated cheques in one to four annual instalments.

Indoor Building Facilities

Fitness Centre

The Bridges’ gym is among the best-equipped in Shams Abu Dhabi, reflecting both the higher amenity investment of the newer development and the fitness culture of the professional community it serves. The facility covers the full range of modern fitness modalities: a cardiovascular zone with treadmills, stationary bicycles, rowing machines, ellipticals, and stair climbers; a strength zone with a comprehensive free-weight selection from light dumbbells through to Olympic plates and barbells, plus a full suite of selectorised resistance machines; a functional training zone with suspension trainers, battle ropes, plyo boxes, and floor space for bodyweight and group training; and dedicated stretching and mat areas for cool-down, mobility work, and yoga. Separate changing and locker room facilities for men and women include showers with good water pressure and changing bench seating. The gym benefits from the community scale of The Bridges — its equipment investment is scaled to serve the full multi-tower resident population, meaning that individual machine availability remains good even during peak usage periods.

Lobby & Concierge

The entrance lobby and concierge facilities at The Bridges reflect the development’s premium positioning within the Shams Abu Dhabi market. The lobby design uses materials and a spatial scale that communicate arrival at a well-considered address rather than merely a functional entry point: stone or stone-effect flooring, high-quality lighting, a reception desk staffed during business hours by the building’s concierge team, and seating arrangements that make the lobby a usable transition space rather than a pass-through. The concierge team handles resident queries, visitor management, parcel receipt and storage, maintenance request logging, and general building information — providing a human point of contact that is one of the concrete, daily-practical advantages of living in an Aldar-managed development with a staffed concierge rather than an unmanned lobby.

Retail & Dining at Podium Level

The Bridges’ ground and podium-level retail provides the daily-use amenities that reduce dependence on car trips for routine needs: a convenience supermarket or mini-market stocked for day-to-day grocery needs, a pharmacy for routine prescriptions and personal care, a cafe or coffee shop for morning beverages and casual breakfast, and casual dining outlets covering a range of cuisines reflecting the building’s diverse international resident community. The retail activation is complementary to — and within easy walking distance of — the broader Shams Abu Dhabi promenade restaurant and cafe scene, giving residents both the immediate convenience of within-complex retail and the broader leisure dining offer of one of Abu Dhabi’s most vibrant waterfront restaurant strips.

Views: The Gulf Frontage From Every Angle

The Bridges occupies a Gulf-fronting position in Shams Abu Dhabi that gives the development one of the most open and unobstructed northward water-view aspects on Al Reem Island. The elevated podium sits above the low-rise retail and restaurant units lining the promenade below, meaning that the view horizon from the podium amenity level — pool deck, bridge walkways, outdoor terrace areas — is clear of foreground obstructions and extends directly across the Arabian Gulf. From the upper floors of the development’s taller towers, this view quality intensifies: the Gulf fills the northward frame completely, and the Saadiyat Island coastline is visible as a low profile of emerging towers and natural shore on the far horizon.

North-Facing Gulf Views

The most sought-after view orientation at The Bridges is north — direct Gulf exposure with the full Arabian Sea spread across the view frame from mid-floor levels upward. These apartments experience the full drama of the Gulf at every time of day and season: the early morning mist burning off the water as the day brightens, the deep, clear blue of the Gulf at midday, and the colour sequences of the Gulf at sunset, which in the west-facing component of the north-west aspect can be spectacular during the cooler months. The promenade below provides a human-scale foreground to the water view on the lower floors, adding the animation of the pedestrian and dining life of the Shams Abu Dhabi waterfront to the natural drama of the Gulf beyond.

South-Facing City Views

South-facing apartments look across the internal landscape of Al Reem Island toward the Abu Dhabi City main island skyline and the Corniche Road waterfront. At upper floors, the city view is broad and deep — the full sweep of Abu Dhabi’s dense, gleaming urban fabric across multiple kilometres, with the blue channel of water between the islands adding depth and distinguishing the view from a mere cityscape. On the clearest winter days, the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque‘s white dome is visible in the mid-distance — one of the world’s most beautiful buildings as a regular presence in the living room view.

Internal Podium Views

A distinctive feature of The Bridges’ view landscape — one that has no equivalent in any other building on the island — is the view into the podium itself from apartments that face the internal courtyard and bridge network. From these units, residents look down and across the elevated landscape: the infinity pool, the bridge walkways, the garden areas, the movement of neighbours through the shared outdoor space. This is an urban residential view type more commonly associated with well-designed mixed-use neighbourhoods in European cities than with Abu Dhabi tower living, and it gives The Bridges a human-scaled, community-animated view dimension that complements the dramatic Gulf panoramas available from the outward-facing apartments. Units with this internal podium orientation are outstanding in value terms within the development — they provide all the building quality and amenity access at the most accessible pricing within The Bridges.

Location Within Shams Abu Dhabi & City Access

The Bridges sits within Shams Abu Dhabi in a Gulf-fronting position that places it at the heart of the sub-district’s waterfront community, within easy walking distance of the promenade’s full extent, the sub-district’s dining and retail infrastructure, the Burjeel Day Surgery Center, and the full suite of outdoor public space that makes Shams Abu Dhabi the most well-appointed sub-district on the island. The building’s position within Shams gives it bridge connection times to the Abu Dhabi main island that are among the best available on Al Reem Island — an advantage that compounds over a working week into a very meaningful daily time saving for residents who commute to the main island.

Key Drive Times from The Bridges

Abu Dhabi City Centre / Corniche: 8–13 minutes in normal traffic.

Al Maryah Island / ADGM / Galleria: 10–15 minutes.

Reem Mall / Snow Abu Dhabi: 6–9 minutes.

Saadiyat Island / Louvre Abu Dhabi: 16–22 minutes.

Yas Island entertainment complex: 26–32 minutes via Airport Road E20.

Abu Dhabi International Airport: 22–28 minutes via Airport Road E20.

Dubai Border (Sheikh Zayed Road E11): 45–55 minutes in light traffic.

Lifestyle: Shams Waterfront Living at Its Finest

The Bridges residents enjoy the full lifestyle offer of Shams Abu Dhabi — the sub-district that is consistently rated the most desirable residential address on Al Reem Island — with the added dimension of the development’s own exceptional shared outdoor environment. The morning routine for a Bridges resident might begin with a pre-work swim in the infinity pool, breakfast at one of the promenade cafes a two-minute walk away, and a ten-minute drive to the main island. The evening routine might involve a sunset walk along the bridge network, dinner at the promenade, and the particular pleasure of returning to a well-specified apartment in a building where the facilities are genuinely worth using. This combination of private-space quality and shared-space richness — both within the development and in the sub-district around it — is what gives The Bridges its lifestyle premium over every other building on the island.

The Shams Abu Dhabi promenade itself — directly accessible from The Bridges’ ground-floor exit — is one of Abu Dhabi’s finest urban outdoor spaces: a Gulf-facing walkway lined with restaurants and cafes, bordered by mangrove access points for kayaking and wildlife observation, and animated throughout the cooler months by the full breadth of the island community’s outdoor social life. The restaurants on the promenade include options covering Lebanese, Asian, Italian, and international cuisines; the cafes range from specialty coffee outlets to casual all-day dining; and the informal social life of the waterfront — the morning joggers, the evening walkers, the families with children at the playground, the couples at outdoor restaurant tables — creates the ambient urban warmth that makes a neighbourhood feel lived-in and alive. For Bridges residents, this is not a ten-minute drive away but a one-minute walk.

Beyond the immediate sub-district, Abu Dhabi City‘s cultural landscape is accessible in a sequence of short journeys. The Louvre Abu Dhabi — Jean Nouvel’s extraordinary silver-domed museum housing a permanent collection that spans 5,000 years of human artistic achievement — is sixteen to twenty minutes away on Saadiyat Island. The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, teamLab Phenomena Abu Dhabi, and the Zayed National Museum are progressing on Saadiyat’s Cultural District, adding to an already remarkable cultural pipeline. The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque is fifteen minutes away. The BAPS Hindu Mandir — the first traditional Hindu stone temple in the Middle East — and the Abrahamic Family House both reflect the spiritual and cultural breadth of Abu Dhabi’s resident community and are accessible in similar timeframes.

For families, Reem Mall provides Snow Abu Dhabi — the indoor snow park that has become one of Abu Dhabi’s most popular year-round family destinations — alongside VOX Cinemas, Magic Planet, and an extensive restaurant level, all within six to nine minutes. Reem Central Park offers on-island outdoor green space, jogging tracks, play areas, and outdoor exercise stations during the cooler months. Saadiyat Beach and Corniche Beach are within twenty minutes; Jubail Mangrove Park offers kayaking and birdwatching through Abu Dhabi’s protected mangrove reserve in approximately twenty minutes. Yas Island — Ferrari World, Warner Bros. World, SeaWorld, Yas Marina Circuit, CLYMB, and Etihad Arena — is twenty-five to thirty minutes via Airport Road E20.

The dining landscape accessible to Bridges residents is exceptional. The Galleria Al Maryah Island‘s waterfront dining — Zuma Abu Dhabi, LPM Restaurant & Bar, Roberto’s Abu Dhabi, Hakkasan Abu Dhabi — is ten to fifteen minutes away. Tresind Studio adds Michelin-starred modern Indian fine dining to the accessible range. The promenade’s own restaurants provide daily neighbourhood dining without requiring a car trip.

Healthcare for The Bridges Residents

The Bridges residents benefit from Shams Abu Dhabi‘s excellent on-island healthcare infrastructure, anchored by the Burjeel Day Surgery Center within The Arc — a short walk or drive from The Bridges, and the island’s most comprehensive outpatient medical facility. The Burjeel Day Surgery Center provides GP consultations, specialist outpatient appointments across multiple medical disciplines, diagnostic imaging and pathology services, dental and orthodontic care, physiotherapy and rehabilitation, and day surgical procedures including the kinds of minor elective procedures that would previously have required a main island hospital visit. For residents, the practical implication is that a large proportion of routine and elective medical needs can be addressed on-island, during a working lunch hour or on the way home from the promenade — without the time cost of a bridge crossing and main island hospital visit.

Reem Hospital provides 24-hour emergency care and inpatient facilities on Al Reem Island. For tertiary specialist care, Sheikh Khalifa Medical City (SKMC) — Cleveland Clinic-affiliated, 741 beds — and Sheikh Shakhbout Medical City (SSMC) — Mayo Clinic-affiliated, 742 beds, the UAE’s largest hospital — are both approximately fifteen minutes via the main island bridge and provide world-class specialist medical and surgical care across all disciplines. Corniche Hospital‘s specialist maternity services — the UAE’s most experienced dedicated obstetric facility, with over 300,000 deliveries since 1975 — are accessible in the same timeframe. Burjeel Medical City, VPS Healthcare’s flagship quaternary care facility, adds further specialist depth to the accessible hospital network.

Schools for The Bridges Families

The school choice for The Bridges families is shaped by the same quality and convenience factors that attract the international professional community to Shams Abu Dhabi in the first place: on-island schools of international reputation that eliminate the morning bridge commute and provide curriculum portability for globally mobile families.

Repton School Abu Dhabi — offering the British National Curriculum from KG through Year 13, with IGCSE and A-Level qualifications — is the most chosen school by Bridges families seeking British curriculum education with institutional global recognition. The school’s UK affiliation with Repton School, Derbyshire, provides the cross-network curriculum continuity that supports children moving between international postings. The on-island location means that the morning school run from The Bridges involves no bridge crossing — a daily time saving that adds up to a meaningful quality-of-life improvement over the course of a school year.

Nord Anglia International School — also on Al Reem Island — offers the Nord Anglia Education Group’s enriched curriculum incorporating collaborations with the Juilliard School, MIT, and the United Nations. For families who prioritise a globally connected educational experience and the flexibility of a school network spanning 80+ schools in 32 countries, Nord Anglia is the natural choice, and its on-island location provides the same bridge-free commute advantage as Repton. Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi serves French-speaking families at university level on the island. Main island schools offering American, IB, and other international curricula are accessible within fifteen to twenty-five minutes of The Bridges for families whose curriculum preferences are not met by the on-island British options.

Shopping & Everyday Convenience

The retail infrastructure available to Bridges residents covers everyday convenience through luxury brand shopping across a very manageable geographic range. Within the development itself, ground-level retail provides daily essentials — grocery, pharmacy, cafe — without requiring a car trip. Six to nine minutes away, Reem Mall provides the island’s most comprehensive shopping and entertainment destination: 400+ stores, a full-format Waitrose supermarket, Carrefour for broader grocery needs, a broad restaurant level, VOX Cinemas, Magic Planet family entertainment, and Snow Abu Dhabi. The mall’s proximity makes it a practical option for both the weekly shop and spontaneous family leisure.

For premium retail and luxury brands, the Galleria Al Maryah Island — ten to fifteen minutes from The Bridges — provides Abu Dhabi’s most complete luxury shopping experience: international luxury fashion, jewellery, watches, premium home goods, and specialty food retail, all in a waterfront setting with an exceptional dining terrace. The Galleria’s Waitrose is also a preferred grocery destination for residents who appreciate the retailer’s premium food selection and specialty international range. Yas Mall — the largest mall in Abu Dhabi at twenty-five to thirty minutes — provides the widest retailer selection for occasions requiring specific brand or category breadth. Marina Mall on the Corniche is fifteen minutes away and offers a well-established mall in a sea-facing setting.

The Bridges as an Investment

The investment case for The Bridges rests on three reinforcing pillars. The first is specification premium: the development’s newer standard — kitchens, bathrooms, glazing, building systems — produces stronger tenant retention than older buildings at equivalent prices. Tenants who have specifically sought The Bridges for its quality are more likely to renew their tenancy at the end of their contract period than tenants who arrived by default, and each renewal saves the landlord the equivalent of one to three months’ rent in void period and re-letting costs. Over a five-year investment horizon, this retention premium compounds into a meaningfully higher effective return than the gross yield figure captures.

The second pillar is amenity-driven demand: The Bridges’ shared facility quality — the infinity pool, the bridge landscape, the outdoor programme — attracts a tenant segment that places high value on shared amenity use and that is willing to pay a rental premium to access it. This tenant segment is consistent, well-established in Abu Dhabi’s professional community, and continuously replenished by the city’s ongoing corporate inflow from markets where premium shared amenity in residential buildings is the expected standard. The demand for The Bridges’ specific amenity profile is not fragile or trend-dependent; it reflects durable preferences that are firmly established in the international residential market.

The third pillar is Aldar management: the institutional property management that reduces operational risk for investors who cannot be on-site to monitor building quality, provides transparent service charge accounting, and maintains the physical standard of the building’s shared fabric at a level that protects the long-term asset value. For further investment benchmarking, the Best Areas for Investment in Abu Dhabi and Best Waterfront Areas in Abu Dhabi guides place The Bridges within the full Abu Dhabi City investment context.

Frequently Asked Questions: The Bridges

1. How does The Bridges compare to the Gate Towers and Sky Tower?

The Bridges and the older generation of Shams Abu Dhabi towers — Gate Tower 1, Gate Tower 2, Gate Tower 3, Sky Tower, and Sun Tower — serve the same island community and share the same Aldar management quality, but they represent genuinely different residential propositions shaped by different design philosophies and different eras of delivery. The first-generation buildings are defined by their individual architectural statements — the Gate Towers gateway composition, Sky Tower’s supreme altitude — and by their building-level amenity focused primarily on a pool and a gym. The Bridges is defined by its community design — the elevated podium, the bridge landscape, the multi-purpose outdoor programme — and by its newer specification quality in kitchens, bathrooms, and glazing. The buildings are not in competition; they are complementary products within the same outstanding sub-district, serving different buyer and tenant priorities. For residents who prioritise altitude and skyline drama above all, Sky Tower or Gate Tower upper floors are unmatched. For residents who prioritise community outdoor quality, newer specification, and the richest shared amenity environment on the island, The Bridges is the clear choice.

2. Do all towers in The Bridges have the same amenity access?

Yes — and this is one of the most important features of the development’s design. All residential towers within The Bridges share equal access to all shared amenity infrastructure: the infinity pool, all bridge walkways, all outdoor terrace and garden areas, the BBQ pavilions, the outdoor gym, the children’s play zone, and the fitness centre. There is no tiering of amenity access by tower within the development — residents of a smaller or lower tower have the same rights to and use of all shared spaces as residents of the tallest or most prominent tower. This equitable amenity access model is a deliberate design decision that reflects The Bridges’ community-first philosophy: shared spaces are for the community, not for a premium sub-segment of it. Prospective buyers and tenants should confirm the specific towers, their heights, and the unit configurations available within each with their estate agent, as the multi-tower structure means that the secondary market inventory at any given time reflects whichever specific tower and floor combinations happen to be available.

3. What is the infinity pool like in practical terms, and is it crowded at weekends?

The infinity pool at The Bridges is genuinely functional for swimming — its length and width make lap swimming practical — and is used heavily for leisure and social purposes during the October–April cooler season, when Abu Dhabi’s outdoor life reaches its most vibrant expression. At weekends during the cooler months, the pool deck is lively and sociable: families at the pool terrace, adults swimming, neighbours catching up at the outdoor seating. This animation is one of the features that residents who specifically sought a community-oriented building most value about The Bridges — the pool is an active social space, not just a photographed amenity. During the summer months, the pool’s heating and the early-morning and late-evening cooler hours make it usable for the dedicated swimmers among the resident community, while the indoor gym absorbs the fitness demand during peak heat. The pool deck capacity is well-matched to the development’s resident population under Aldar’s management — pool access is consistently available, and the outdoor terrace provides sufficient space for the level of activity the building sustains at its busiest periods.

4. How does the chiller system work and what should I budget?

The Bridges uses district cooling for all apartment air conditioning — a centralised system that delivers chilled water to each unit’s fan coil units from a central plant, providing consistent, energy-efficient cooling without any equipment maintenance responsibility for residents. The system bills in two transparent components: a fixed capacity charge (based on the apartment’s installed cooling capacity, payable monthly regardless of actual usage) and a variable consumption charge (based on metered chilled water usage, measured in refrigeration tonne-hours). The advantages of district cooling over individual AC systems are meaningful in day-to-day living: no compressor noise within or outside the apartment, no refrigerant issues, no annual service contract to manage, and more consistent temperature performance throughout the most demanding summer months. For budget planning purposes, annual chiller costs at The Bridges are approximately AED 8,000–14,000 for studios, AED 12,000–19,000 for one-bedrooms, AED 16,000–25,000 for two-bedrooms, and AED 22,000–33,000 for three-bedrooms, depending on unit size, floor level, and usage patterns. Landlords and tenants are advised to confirm the most recent 12-month chiller billing for the specific unit under consideration before concluding any agreement.

5. What are the best floors and orientations to look for at The Bridges?

The best floors and orientations within The Bridges follow the same general logic as across Shams Abu Dhabi — north-facing Gulf views from upper floors are the most sought-after and command the strongest prices — with some nuances specific to the multi-tower structure of the development. The highest floors of the development’s tallest towers deliver the broadest and most unobstructed Gulf panoramas, and these units achieve the strongest rental and resale performance within the building. South-facing upper-floor apartments have the city view — genuinely beautiful at sufficient elevation — at a typically modest pricing discount to the equivalent north-facing units. For residents who prioritise the development’s unique internal podium view — looking down and across the bridge landscape, the pool, and the shared outdoor spaces — the mid-floor inward-facing units offer a perspective that is entirely distinctive and a building quality that is fully equal to the outward-facing equivalents, at pricing that represents outstanding value within the development. Buyers are well advised to visit the building at different times of day before committing to a specific orientation, as the way different aspects read in morning light versus afternoon versus evening can be a meaningful factor in the daily enjoyment of the apartment.

6. Is The Bridges a good investment for someone buying remotely?

The Bridges is among the most suitable buildings on Al Reem Island for remote property investors, for three specific reasons. First, Aldar’s institutional management removes the operational burden that self-managed or small-developer buildings place on remote owners: maintenance is handled, service charges are accounted for transparently, and the building’s physical condition is professionally maintained without the owner’s hands-on involvement. Second, the development’s strong amenity profile and newer specification attract and retain quality tenants with minimal marketing effort — a well-positioned unit at a competitive rent in The Bridges will find a tenant quickly, consistently, and from the quality segment of the Abu Dhabi rental market. Third, the building’s name recognition within the Shams Abu Dhabi community and among Abu Dhabi estate agents reduces the secondary market friction for investors who eventually wish to exit: agents know the building, have active buyer relationships, and can market The Bridges units with confidence in the product quality. For investors managing their portfolio from London, Singapore, or elsewhere, these three factors together represent a meaningful reduction in operational risk relative to less well-managed or less well-known alternatives in the Abu Dhabi market.

7. How walkable is life at The Bridges?

By Abu Dhabi standards — a city built around car travel, with wide arterial roads and a relatively low pedestrian infrastructure density compared to European cities — The Bridges is exceptionally walkable. The Shams Abu Dhabi promenade is a one-to-two minute walk from the building entrance, providing a Gulf-facing pedestrian route with restaurants, cafes, and open-air seating that extends along the sub-district’s full waterfront. Within the development itself, the bridge walkways and podium landscape provide an elevated pedestrian environment that is entirely car-free and shaded during the cooler months. The retail at ground level covers routine daily needs — coffee, pharmacy, convenience grocery — without requiring a car. Reem Central Park is accessible by a short walk or cycle within the island. For the broader city — main island destinations, the Galleria, Saadiyat — a car is the practical choice, and Careem and Uber provide reliable, consistently available alternatives for those who prefer not to drive. Abu Dhabi’s island cycling infrastructure is progressively expanding, and the promenade route offers an increasingly attractive cycling option for residents who use two wheels for leisure or short-distance errands during the cooler months.

Explore The Bridges’ Neighbourhood & Related Guides

The Bridges is part of the Shams Abu Dhabi community, alongside Gate Tower 1, Gate Tower 2, Gate Tower 3, Sky Tower, Sun Tower, The Arc, Mangrove Place, Meera Towers, Oceanscape, Pixel Tower, Reflection Tower, and Leaf Tower. For the island-wide perspective, visit the Al Reem Island area guide. Island comparison guides: Al Reem Island vs Saadiyat Island and Al Reem Island vs Yas Island. Investment guides: Best Areas for Investment in Abu Dhabi, Best Waterfront Areas in Abu Dhabi, and Best Luxury Areas in Abu Dhabi. City overview: Abu Dhabi City.