Athi River Smart Green City partners with Dubai-based advisor
Betty Muindi @BettyMuindi
The Athi River Smart Green City project has onboarded Dubai-based real estate investor Hilshaw Group as an exclusive advisor.
The 4, 500-acre Athi River project is located 10 kilometres from the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, along the Nairobi – Mombasa highway.
The development will be home to a self-contained community, including commercial, offices, retail spaces, restaurants, hotels and a green resort, golf course, schools, university, community centres, hospitals, sports, leisure and entertainment facilities in addition to more than 4,000 residential units.
Hilshaw Group is a multi-family office and investment advisory company, which primarily invests in low-supply and finite real estate opportunities.
It has allocated $175 million (Sh18.8 billion) towards United Arab Emirates (UAE) real estate, specifically towards the facilitation of the ‘remote work visa’ programme.
Hilshaw’s UAE plans to involve the customisation of ‘ready to move-in’ real estate for the post-Covid adoption of working from home.
Hilshaw is pre-negotiating remote work contracts at the employer level within international tech and Fintech industries and is looking to relocate more than 1,200 employees during its first phase.
Project principal, Kenya’s Jetblack Group (Jetblack Energy), has planned the smart green city to be a pollution-free environment where the entire city’s energy will be produced through a waste power plant.
Megaprojects, such as Athi River Smart Green City are only possible as a joint collaboration of experts, the public and private sectors, and like-minded visionaries.
Similarly, evolutionary plans can only be achieved in the presence of teams and partners who themselves have the ability to evolve,” said Keshoney Elisha, President Jetblack Group.
Waste from Machakos county and the Athi River project will be processed through the plant’s four reactors to produce some 576 megawats in 24 hours with zero emissions.
According to the partners, the projected outputs will be achieved by processing 400 tons of solid waste.
Its public transport will run exclusively on electric, hybrid and the waste power plant produced biogas.
Residents will be issued with special permits for conventionally powered vehicles upon fulfillment of emission regulations.
“Hilshaw Group has proven its ability to do so over the years and has its successes to prove it. We are delighted to have [it] as part of this monumental Kenyan dream,” he said.
The project is planned to commence development by May 2022, and the first phase release is anticipated to be by the end of 2025.
