Inside the World’s First Wellness Island

Picture a private island where the daily routine skews towards blood panels, cold plunges and chef-led nutrition rather than beach clubs. That is the pitch behind SHA Island, a new project at AlJurf on the UAE’s Sahel Al Emarat coast, midway between Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The destination is being developed with IMKAN Properties and anchored by SHA Wellness Clinic, the Spanish brand known for clinic-level programmes that mix diagnostics with spa, movement and nutrition. Partners are marketing it as the world’s first island community built entirely around longevity and healthy living.

Unlike a typical resort launch, SHA Island arrives as a hybrid of real estate and hospitality. Knight Frank has been appointed to lead sales of SHA Residences Emirates Island, the on-island homes that sit alongside the wellness clinic. Recent sales briefs trail a mix of apartments and villas with direct access to SHA’s programmes. One widely cited breakdown points to 51 apartments, 19 garden villas and 67 beach or shoreline villas, giving the place the feel of a small, health-obsessed neighbourhood.

The setting is deliberately low-key. AlJurf sells itself as a nature corridor where the desert meets the Gulf, and SHA’s materials lean into that story, promising a calm coastline, planted forests and long sweeps of pale sand. The island sits within this wider estate, which IMKAN has been shaping as a slow-living counterpoint to city life. For SHA, it is an opportunity to put its clinic model behind a residential front door rather than a four-night stay.

What makes it a “wellness island” in practice is the degree of clinical access on the doorstep. Marketing suggests residents and guests will be able to book into SHA’s diagnostics and longevity pathways, with fitness, mindfulness and nutrition built in, then step back to a home designed around the same philosophy. Sustainability notes in the launch coverage talk about passive cooling, intelligent monitoring and solar-assisted systems rather than showy gestures. It reads less like a beach resort with a gym, more like a neighbourhood designed around health metrics.

Timelines matter with projects of this scale. The opening window being circulated is 2027, with some materials pointing to earlier handovers for parts of the residential offer and full destination operations the following year. No official rate card has been published for clinic programmes on the island yet, but the pitch is clear: a permanent or semi-permanent base that bakes the SHA method into daily life.

If the “world’s first” tag feels bold, that is the lane SHA and its partners have chosen. Wellness resorts on islands are not new, but a private island community arranged from the ground up around longevity, with a clinic operator as the heartbeat, is a different proposition. For buyers, the draw is access and continuity. For the Gulf’s tourism and real estate playbook, it is another sign that high-end wellness is moving from long weekends to long leases.