Nairobi’s Runda estate will soon be home to Kenya’s largest shopping mall. This is after the NSE-listed investment company, Centum, revealed its plans to build the shopping mall on its 100-acre land in the the prestigious Runda, Gigiri, Muthaiga and Nyali neighbourhoods.
The, Two Rivers, shopping complex will occupy a total of 58,000m2 dethroning the upcoming Garden City mall along Thika Road at 50,000m2, which was poised to become East Africa’s biggest shopping mall. The shopping mall, which is set to open in October 2015, is part of a US$682.2m mixed-use real estate development being undertaken by Centum on its US$ 11.3m parcel of land.
Centum says it is in the process of converting Two Rivers into a Development Real Estate Investment Trust (D-REIT) adding that it has so far secured interest for funding of over 164.3m in equity and long-term debt from local and institutional investors.
The Two Rivers development will consist of medium density residential homes, a five-star hotel, office blocks and a shopping centre. The development is being executed in phases and it will have a total floor area of about 830,000m2 on completion.
According to Centum CEO, James Mworia , Paris-based Carrefour, the world’s second largest retailer after Walmart, has booked 100,000 square-feet at the Two Rivers shopping mall adding that half of the mall’s space has already been booked mainly by international retailers.
The property is sandwiched between Limuru road to the south and the Northern bypass to the north within the diplomatic blue zone.
The site will be developed in an environmentally sustainable manner that will seek to protect and preserve the flora and fauna and the riparian reserve. To achieve this noble objective, the master plan has allocated about 30% of the total area to preservation of green areas.
The development will also make the most of the favourable climatic conditions resulting from the unique location of Nairobi within equatorial area to create destination that is naturally appealing in all seasons.
