Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa Dec/January 2020 | Page 59

the country appealing to a large number of real estate investors
around the globe. It has also seen the erection of high valued
developments like The River Estate. Chinese investor John
Zeyun Yang together with national and county governments,
officially began the groundbreaking of eight high-rise
apartment buildings in Nairobi’s Ngara estate in March 2019.
The 34-story blocks will each contain 340 homes and be one
of the tallest residential developments in the Kenyan capital.
The River Estate
Scheduled for completion in December 2021. The River Estate
consists of a planned bridge that will cross the Nairobi River
to provide easy access to and from the 2.3-hectare gated
community. Yang’s firm, Erdemann Property Limited, has been
operating in Kenya since 2003 and has built about 4,000 homes
and warehouses throughout Nairobi and Mombasa.
88 Nairobi
Lordship Africa, an international real estate development
company has begun construction on the 88 Nairobi
condominiums. The 44-story building will include high-end
residential apartments from studio units to luxury penthouses.
The residential units begin at the eighth floor and will feature
generous covered terraces and balconies protected by
transparent safety glass balustrades. The lower floors will
contain a gym, parking area, shops and a restaurant.
The tower will have 12,000 square feet (1,115 square meters)
of rental space and an additional 16,000 square feet (1,486
square meters) of lush gardens. The development is targeting the
community of people who work in the Upper Hill district, which is
home to embassies, multi-national corporations, blue-chip financial
companies, medical institutions, and the high-profile legal firms.
Nairobi Gate Industrial Park
Among some of the international real estate investors
intending to take advantage of the African investment hub
with opportunities for greater returns, is South African unlisted
property developer Improvon.
Improvon collaborated with private equity Investor
Actis to build the biggest industrial real-estate
investment in Kenya’s history. The two companies have
created a joint venture called ImpAct to build the 40ha
industrial business park development at an estimated
cost of R1.7bn.
The new development will be called Nairobi Gate
Industrial Park. Improvon CEO Stefano Contardo said
Kenya stood out as an African country to invest in while
SA struggled with economic weakness and political
squabbles. Kenya is forecast to grow at nearly 6% in
2019.
Various other countries within Africa have a wide
variety of investment opportunities including Zambia with
the best retail developments, Ghana commercial office
developments, eSwatini with the best hotel developments
and Mozambique with the best industrial and logistic
developments among others.
For African real estate investment opportunities, AFSIC’
Investing in Africa 2020 seats in London in May 2020.
SOURCE API, Standard Bank, JLL’s Global Real Estate
Transparency Index (GRETI), Global Tall Building News,
Improvon, Lordship Africa, Erdemann Property Limited
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