Companies

American firm to build Sh4bn KU hostel complex

WORKSHOP

A workshop on PPPs in higher education in Nairobi on Monday. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU

An American private equity firm has won a contract to build a Sh4 billion hostel complex for Kenyatta University (KU) with a capacity to house up to 10,000 students.

Africa Integras, a New York-based firm which invests in university infrastructure, has been picked as the lead investor that will, after negotiations with KU, appoint an architect, a building firm and the hostel operator.

The hostel will be developed on a build-operate-transfer model where the investor is expected to build the facility and collect rent for 15 to 20 years before handing it back to the university.

“Africa Integras is now in the final negotiations with the university in order to pick the final partners,” said Evans Kamau, investment officer with the International Finance Corporation (IFC).

IFC, the private sector financing arm of the World Bank, is advising Kenyatta University on the project.

The consortium will build the hostel on a 20-acre piece of land in the university’s main campus to accommodate 9,350 undergraduate students, 500 post-graduate students and have 150 bed-sitter rooms.

Africa Integras is part of America’s The Christie Company Group, which has done similar work in the UK, the US as well as Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

The hostel is the first public-private partnership (PPP) project being undertaken by the public university in response to a surge in demand for accommodation.

READ: Demand for varsity student housing spurs property

A double intake of university freshmen in 2011 meant to make up for a two-year backlog of Form Four leavers made the situation worse.

Student enrolment in public universities stood at 276,349 last year, a 97 per cent increase from 139,770 in 2010, according to the Economic Survey 2014.

Kenyatta University admitted 70,006 students last year, which represented a 115 per cent increase from the 32,588 students it enrolled within the same four-year period.

It is this exponential growth that has left students across the majority of tertiary institutions in the country struggling to find accommodation, at times resorting to living in squalor.

KU students who fail to secure limited rooms within the main campus have over the years sought alternative — and more expensive — accommodation at Kahawa Sukari, Ruiru, Roysambu and Kahawa Wendani estates.

“The project proposal will be forwarded to the PPP steering committee, the Attorney General and then the Cabinet for final approval after which construction can commence,” said Mr Kamau.

The KU project is one of six similar student hostels planned by public universities under the stewardship of the Treasury’s PPP Unit.

Embu University College, Egerton, South Eastern Kenya University, Kenya School of Government (Embu) and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology are also set to build student hostels in the near term.

The University of Nairobi also plans to build a Sh3 billion hostel on Harry Thuku Road to house between 2,000 and 3,000 students.