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Nibs to put up Sh400m 5-star hotel in upmarket Kileleshwa

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Nibs founder Lizzie Wanyoike. photo | Mwangi muiruri | nmg

Nairobi Institute of Business Studies (Nibs) will put up a Sh400 million five-star hotel in the upmarket city suburb of Kileleshwa.

The facility will offer commercial services as well as serve the institute’s hospitality students in practical training as well as internship.

Founder and chief executive officer Lizzie Wanyoike said the funding has been secured from Equity Bank #ticker:EQTY and a contractor picked.

“It is a diversification project and will join other expansion endeavors of the Nibs. We are looking into the future and consolidating our incomes into broader investment spectrum,” she said.

The facility will be run as a commercial enterprise with own profit and loss accounts despite affiliation to the Nibs.

It is expected to open for business by 2019. Other affiliated ventures are land-buying and selling as well as the Lizzie Wanyoike Foundation.

Ms Wanyoike said the business has been growing steadily for the past 17 years, with rapid growth recorded in the period between 2010 to date.

“We have grown this investment from the Sh6 million capital of 2010 to the current status where we now sit on a Sh600 million 10 acres of land in Kimbo, Ruiru that’s fully developed,” she said.

She said the Nibs student population has hit 6, 000 and is managed by 250 staff.

The Nibs entry into Ruiru is reported to have been key to real estate development in the area.

Area business community chairman Francis Onyancha said by 2010 the area was undeveloped and only sprouted to life when Nibs was established in the area.

“Real estate shot up through the roof. There was scramble for land around the college,” he said.

In 2010, an acre of land along the Nairobi Thika Superhighway on Ruiru-Kimbo stretch was selling at Sh5 million. Today the price is Sh60 million,” he says.

Investors have taken advantage of Nibs presence to build hostels, rental houses and hospitality industry became defined.