Dunhill Consulting: Town Houses, Apartments and Office Blocks in Kenya

Bharat Doshi, Director at Dunhill Consulting, mentions some of the main projects that are currently being pushed through Dunhill.

“Our experience has been very diverse. We have done town houses, apartments, office blocks and shopping centres. What we find is that there are opportunities in different segments at different times, so you really need to find the right opportunity at the right time and find the niche that you are able to provide in the marketplace to ensure that your project is well accepted and sold correctly at the right price, etc. We have a philosophy and value system in place at Dunhill, meaning that the properties that we develop are very unique. They have a lot of USPs, they are very good value for money, whether for investment or lease, and we make sure we cut no corners at all when it comes to quality. We also abide by all the statutory laws of Kenya, which includes solar building plans, parking allowances, etc. This is done to European or American standards. Our buildings are correctly fire-rated, etc.”, says Bharat Doshi.

“We are currently working on three projects. The first is a massive office tower that we are building on the main Waiyaki Way. It’s a 20-storey building solely for tier-1 office space, and this building is unique in that it is a Green Star rated building and probably the first of this kind in Kenya. It is environmentally-compliant, uses all the necessary energy-efficient building systems, etc., so whoever buys or rents it is going to benefit from all the good things that a Green Star rated building can offer you. Besides that, it is tailored to multinational companies, so it’s appropriately designed, in terms of parking space, lifts, disabled access and space for the various different functions that a building may need to serve. It’s 100% fire-rated, as well as being correctly rated for CCTV operations. This is a fully ‘plug and play’ building, so any tenant who comes in will simply be able to connect, and everything will be instant – as opposed to having to do wiring and everything again. This is one of our main projects underway, due to be completed by June 2017. We have also observed the number of apartments coming up in Nairobi, which you may have also noticed. Everyone believes the apartment segment is now saturated, but we disagree. We believe that opportunity is still there, but what the client now needs is the right location and the right price, as the market is becoming very discerning, meaning that the buyer has a lot of choice – and if he is smart, he can find exactly what he needs at the right price. As such, we have a project where we are putting up 60 apartments on one of the city’s prime residential roads, very close to where we are now, namely General Mathenge drive. These apartments are made in such a way that they are in the right location and yet remain economical, making our price points extremely effective. Even before starting the project, we had already sold 25 apartments out of 60 and we are now able to get pre-sales going. The third thing that we are now embarking on is warehousing space. There is demand for good-sized, well-located warehousing space, so our next project involves putting up some serious warehousing parks”, he adds.