NabeelHomes Wants to Renovate Alexandria's Crumbling Old Buildings

NabeelHomes runs more than 20 short-term rental apartments in Alexandria, almost all of them in Gleem and San Stefano on the Corniche, where the buildings have lifts and sea views and the neighbourhoods carry the services holidaymakers expect.

Its founder, Mohamed Nabeel, now wants to move the company somewhere else entirely. He has started approaching owners of heritage buildings in the old city, offering to renovate and operate them whole.

"We're trying to reach out to real estate developers and owners of heritage buildings in Alexandria, and we're trying to have those kinds of deals and contracts where we would be the operator responsible for renovating the entire building with an adaptive-reuse mindset," he says. "I think my experience and my background in architecture might really help in making those buildings livable again, and Alexandria needs that."

He imagines whole buildings running as mixed-use, with apartments, boutique hotels, shops and restaurants, bringing activity back into parts of the city whose architecture has long outlasted its use. "It's a very old and ancient city, and it deserves that kind of focus," he says.

What pushed him there was a piece of guest feedback he had not expected. A visitor staying in one of the company's ordinary residential flats extended his trip and moved into the unit NabeelHomes operates inside the Four Seasons San Stefano, the most expensive property on its books. He came back and told Nabeel the upgrade had made the trip worse.

"We thought it would be quite the opposite," Nabeel says. "We thought it was really nice to have that upscale Airbnb experience in Alexandria."

The comment sent him back to the city's old master plans. "If you trace the old master plans of Alexandria and look at how the city used to look, you never had those kinds of larger-scale buildings. You always had those smaller buildings."

Nabeel studied architecture at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Alexandria and joined Save Alexandria, an initiative focused on the city's built heritage, before moving to Dubai to work for Apple. The idea for the rental company began closer to home, during time spent with family and friends in Alexandria, when a stay at an Airbnb left him intrigued by the model of ordinary homeowners renting out their own spaces.

"All of a sudden, my focus at that point was just to study that model," he says. "You start with one property, and then it just happens."

The first was a single flat in Gleem at the end of 2021.

The locations that followed were deliberate. Alexandria is a linear city and its sea-facing neighbourhoods run along the Corniche. Gleem, San Stefano and Saba Pasha carry the views and the infrastructure, which matters particularly to guests arriving from the Gulf, who are used to buildings with lifts and services. Nabeel calls them "the crème de la crème of the Corniche."

His training shows in how he handles the properties. Design, for him, is only partly about how an apartment photographs.

"Without studying architecture, I don't think I would have been successful in this business because people are looking for an experience," he says. "It's not only that you book an Airbnb that looks nice, you roam around, enjoy yourself and then go back. It's not a bed, and it's not a key. It's a different experience."

The company shares guidebooks with guests, arranges restaurant reservations and puts together itineraries. "Everything is designed with intention," Nabeel says.

He is conscious that the Corniche is only one version of the city. "The old city of Alexandria is different," he says. "If you've been there recently, there are a lot of renovations happening with the buildings and the facades, but the majority of buildings have deteriorated because of the humidity."

When NabeelHomes started, its guests came mostly from the Gulf, particularly Saudi Arabia. International visitors were rare, and foreign tourists tended to treat Alexandria as a day trip out of Cairo.

"We hadn't seen a lot of foreigners or international visitors coming to Alexandria. That has changed dramatically very recently," he says. He points to high-profile visits, pop-culture appearances and renewed investment in the city's historic spaces, along with a growing number of international guests of his own, including visitors from Japan.

"Alexandria has always been a nostalgic city with a lot of collective memory, but if you trace its history, it was never just that. It was a very cosmopolitan city and a destination," he says. "It was really sad to see how it changed over time. And with the rise of the North Coast, a lot of people would just go to Sidi Abdel Rahman and other places."

Getting the city back, he argues, takes more than individual businesses. "I think it's the responsibility of the government to advertise the city and connect the airport," he says, pointing to how hard it is to travel onward from Alexandria without first going through Cairo. He favours a participatory design approach between government, communities, businesses and other stakeholders together to shape Alexandria's development as a destination.

He also sees potential in the cruise connections, and in giving repeat visitors to Egypt a reason to choose Alexandria or Port Said on a third trip.

The harder problem is how long people stay. Guest feedback keeps telling him the same thing. "The feedback we get is that people regret spending only one or two nights in Alexandria. If they had more time, they would stay longer."

So he stays in contact after check-in, recommending restaurants and arranging experiences. "As much as I can, I try to take the time to connect with guests and ask, 'How is it going? What are your plans for Alexandria?'" he says. "We're not only highlighting a nice place to dine; we tell the story behind that place."

It comes from his own travelling. In Alicante, he found himself eating alongside locals rather than tourists. "That's exactly the experience that we're trying to curate," he says.

Which is why he is reluctant to measure the company in properties. "For us, the scaling part isn't really the focus. It's more about the experience because we want to protect the experience of ourselves, our homeowners and our guests."

The company's social media has followed, pushing kayaking in Montaza and parasailing over the familiar image of Alexandria as seafood, taxis and a sea view. He is candid that the city cannot compete with the North Coast on water. "It's a place to experience, and that's exactly what we're trying to do."

"Even the name itself, the reason why we named it NabeelHomes, is because we wanted to make sure that we capitalised on the home experience, the home feeling," he says.