Garden City to put up office blocks in phase II

UK Investment firm Actis is set to construct offices at Garden City in the next phase of the mixed development located on Thika Road, Nairobi.
Actis will put up office blocks dubbed Garden City Business Park next to the Garden City Mall.

The business park is part of the $540 million (Sh54 billion) project including Garden City’s flagship mall and residential apartments. The International Finance Corporation and the CDC are also investors in the project.

Construction of the first phase of the project that included the mall and residential apartments was completed mid this year. The second phase will also have residential apartments.

Actis East Africa managing director Michael Turner said the business park targets tenants seeking convenient access to amenities such as hotels and shopping malls.

“With the completion of the first phase and the addition of the Garden City Business Park, we are one step closer to this vision,” said Mt Turner.

The new office park, targeted at Nairobi’s growing business community, will benefit from the huge range of dining, shopping and leisure activities at Garden City Mall as well as hotel and hospital facilities.”

The residential part of the second phase of the project will see the roll out of 56-four bedroom villas and 83 apartments, all on a 21 acre plot next to the main mall.

The first phase included construction of 76 apartments consisting of two-bedroom, three-bedroom and duplexes. Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero said the project will be given all approvals within one month.

“We will reduce approval period to four weeks to encourage investors in this sector,” said Mr Kidero.

Developers are increasingly putting up a mix of hotels, retail shops, offices in their residential units as response to buyers who are preferring to have all facilities close to where they are buying houses.

Centum Investments is adding hotels, schools, apartments and offices at its Two Rivers development on the Northern Bypass in Runda, Nairobi County.

Chinese conglomerate Aviation Industry Corporation of China (Avic) International Real Estate is developing a 43-storey office block, a five-star hotel, and a 25-storey apartment complex in Westlands, Nairobi.

State-owned National Housing Corporation (NHC) announced that going forward, commercial properties will be included in all of its residential developments.

More offices are expected to come up over the next two years due to a surge in developments in most nodes of the city.

“It’s getting clearer by the day that the Nairobi office market is headed for an over-supply in the next couple of years due to increasing vacancy rates and planning applications for new offices,” said realtor MML in its office market report for the July.