Runda Closeburn Master Plan – Image credit: Centum Investment.
NSE listed investment firm Centum is planning to build a Sh60 billion mixed-use real estate development along Limuru Road, near Gigiri.
Planned by South Africa’s GAPP Architects and Urban Designers, the development will comprise high quality medium density homes, office blocks, a five-star hotel and a retail centre.
It will sit on a 100-acre piece of prime land that was recently acquired from the Koinange family in a transaction estimated at more than Sh1 billion.
The property is situated inside the Nairobi’s diplomatic blue zone and is only a 10 minutes drive from the UN Complex, the US Embassy and the Canadian Embassy.
The investment firm says that the piece of land would not be competitive as a purely residential development because the area has plenty of supply of low density homes.
“The property is in an area that has matured as a residential area and is now primed for commercial developments such as offices in much the same way as places such as Upper Hill and Kilimani have experienced,” Centum said in its annual report.
Presently awaiting public examination ahead of approval by the National Environment Management Authority’s approval (NEMA), the project will be developed by Runda Closeburn Limited, a totally-owned subsidiary of Centum founded in 2010.
The project will be carried out in phases and will have a total floor area of about 830,000 square metres when completed. The initial phase of the project will consist of about 100,000 square metres.
Late last year Centum invited local and international investors to buy into the multi-billion project that could later be listed at the Nairobi Securities Exchange under real estate investment trusts (REITs).
The entry of Centum into the profitable real estate sector, in a plan involving buying and master-planning estates before selling them to investors in smaller shares, is aimed at cutting down the firm’s exposure to the volatile stock market.
Centum is the largest quoted investment company in East Africa listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange and Uganda Securities Exchange.
