LIVING "By the Real Estate Leaders" Summer 2015 - Issue #6 | Page 10

Renovating the

Heart of the City
In an effort to restore downtown Cairo to its past

grandeur, the Cairo governorate has initiated a
series of renovations to revive the city’s central
district. The renovations began earlier this year
under the tutelage of Cairo Governor Galal Mostafa
Saeed, and, although the government has long had
plans to renovate downtown, it is only this year that
action was taken to restore this part of the city.
Downtown, which fell into disrepair in the years
following 1956, remains an important landmark for
Egyptians, and when events unfolded in 2011, the
spotlight was on Tahrir. And while the city has
expanded to accommodate new suburbs,
downtown remains Cairo’s cultural and intellectual
hub.
The restoration, which will include renovating old
stores, restaurants and coffee shops, and the
repainting of old buildings, has already borne
results, the most noticeable being the inauguration
of Tahrir Square garage in January and the restoration of building facades.
The Tahrir Square garage, a four-story garage that
accommodates 1,700 cars and can hold up to 24
tourist buses, has already cleared some of

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downtown’s main thoroughfares of doubleparked cars, easing traffic in the heart of the city.
In an effort to cater to visitors and tourists, the
government has announced that plans for the
area above the garage may include up-scale
coffee shops and restaurants.
In addition to clearing the streets of parked cars,
the effort to re-order downtown has included
relocating street vendors and removing
unlicensed coffee shops from the district’s main
streets.

Private Developers
Efforts to restore downtown are not limited to
government-led initiatives, and one of the main
developers working in the area is Al Ismaelia Real
Estate Company. Established in 2008 by founder
of Beltone Financial Aladdin Saba and downtown
enthusiast and entrepreneur Karim Shafei, Al
Ismaelia has been working to renovate and
refurbish the nighborhood's landmark buildings
and re-equip them for modern use.
One of the main challenges in trying to develop
downtown is unused space, which makes it
difficult for companies like Al Ismaelia to effect
real change.

Downtown, like many other parts of Cairo, has
countless vacant apartments; in some cases, the
owners have moved elsewhere but continue to
own the property without renting it out. In other
cases, the old rent law allows renters to retain the
properties for a minimal fee, leaving the owners
with no funds to maintain or restore the
buildings. Although the crisis of unused space is
not limited to downtown, it is particularly obvious
here, where properties have fallen into disrepair
partially because there are so few tenants to
lobby for restorations.
Currently, Al Ismaelia owns 20 landmark buildings
in downtown, most of which are at different
stages of restoration. The company hopes that, by
revitalizing the neighborhood, it will regain its
appeal as a modern, central district in Cairo.
But with more and more people leaving the city
center for settlements in New Cairo and 6th of
October City, many have questioned whether the
gentrification efforts of the government and
private companies can draw affluent Cairenes
back to the city’s center. Whether downtown’s
latest face lift is merely cosmetic or if it will affect
the cost of property and standard of living in the
neighborhood remains to be seen.