Gift Real Estate has launched the first phase of its major housing development project in partnership with the Addis Ababa city administration. On April 27th, Mayor Adanech Abiebie laid the cornerstone to kick off construction in the Le gare area, located at the center of the city.
The initial phase of the Gift project will see the development of 4,000 housing units in multi-story buildings ranging from 14 to 22 floors tall. 3,550 units will be residential apartments, while the remaining 450 will be commercial spaces. With an estimated budget of 4 billion Birr, the phase is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
As part of their public-private partnership agreement, Gift will deliver 30 percent of the constructed units to the city administration to help address housing needs. Mayor Abiebie emphasized at the launch that “the government cannot fulfill demand alone and these types of PPP collaborations are critical.”
In similar large-scale efforts, OVID Construction launched their own 60,000 unit development earlier this month. Spread across 560 hectares of land, it was described by the Mayor as the first of the major privately-led projects. She expects more developers to follow suit in scaling up housing production through such partnerships.
The mega housing projects led by Ovid Group and Gift Real Estate are expected to be finalized within three years.
City officials in Addis Ababa have chosen 68 local and international construction firms to develop new housing complexes through public-private partnerships. The selected companies include several large developers such as Midroc Investment Group, Flintstone Homes, and Eniy Construction, adding to OVID and Gift Real Estate.