The vistas around Beirut’s northern gates are changing. For years, the expanse of seaside development in the Dbayeh township was an empty promise of a coming suburbia. Although much of the area remains as vacant as ever — equipped with just an upscale marina and convention hall — the land-filled seafront district has started to bustle over the past three months with excavators, cranes and concrete pumps. Last month, road construction equipment got busy on some of the district’s long-neglected interior streets. The activity is all related to the Waterfront City project, whose first phase of construction commenced this spring under the partnership of United Arab Emirates-based conglomerate Majid Al Futtaim (MAF) and Lebanese company Joseph G. Khoury et Fils. Hailed by a massive marketing onslaught with emphasis on the new residential offerings’ entry-level prices — advertised at $250,000 — the implementation of Waterfront City’s initial batch represents a $226
