At the moment one of the largest landsprominently located in the Central Area Phase I, which vision is yet to be actualized is that of the National Mall. That is the empty land across the Ahmadu Bello Way from the Eagle Square.
The Final Detailed Urban Design of the Central Area by Kenzo Tange with proposal for the National Mall was presented to the FCDA on 30th April 1981. Ithas by far predated the inauguration of Dubai Mall, which was on 4th November 2008. Perhaps, the DubaiMall planning was done at the same time with that of Abuja, or even much later.
The vision of the Abuja planners is to have a Mall,similar to what was accomplished in Dubai, even if the land area is much smaller in size. Because one of the vision of the founding fathers, is for Abuja to be comparable with other world capital cities.Unfortunately, talk on the Abuja National Mall project till date is never smelling any level of commissioning, because the physical development is yet to even commence.
In 2014, we were informed by the then Coordinator of Abuja Infrastructure Investment Company in one of his interviews, that as part of the safeguards, a financial commitment of up to N3 Billion for the preliminary technical activities had been expended by a developer, Chikason Group. Furthermore, in order to confirm the financial capability of the developer, the agreement as signed included a down payment of 15 percent of the total project cost.
In our contribution to that information we made a presentation on this column on 31st March 2014, titled ‘Abuja National Mall Salvaged at Last’. In which weadvised the authority, that “adequate precautionary measures must be taken in order to prevent the midway abandonment of the project. Because previous attempts met with failure, perhaps due to politics, or lack of adequate preparations”. True to our fear, till date the project is yet to move on from that stage.
Haven made an earlier presentation on the topic, the development guidelines of the National Mall will be revisited in our subsequent features. Because the land is big and strategically located, our greatest fear is the usual clandestine interference and selfish annexation by the people in power against the National interest. It would then be one of the worst disservice, not only to Abuja but to the Nation.
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Apart from the National Mall proposal in the Kenzo Tange Central Area plan, there is another proposal for Central Shopping Mall. Others are National Theater, National Library, Hotels and many more.
In his presentation during the 1999 Abuja Master plan Review workshop, Arc Mansur Kurfi Ahmadu mentioned some of the expectations according to the Central Area Design. He stated that, “development would have reached stage III, between 1985- 1986. Even if it hadn’t, it was expected that the development that had taken place would have created a functioning and organically whole central area by concentrating facilities along the axis to convey a sense of completeness and urbanity”.
He also stated that, “The development of the central axis along Shopping Mall, National Square and Shopping areas was expected to have gone far, giving life and character to the area and city at large. This would have led to a city center with so much life similar to central London or downtown Manhattan in New York”.
It is now 26 years and a lot of water had gone down the bridge since that presentation. A lot of developments took place, with many deviations, some were necessitated while others were initiated. However, some of his observations are still relevant till date.
Building structures and magnificent facilities,without corresponding capacity in terms of the caliber of businesses to use, will not provide the expectedreturns on the investment. Rather the investors would be at lost. Our World Trade Center should really answer its name.
Presently, all locations in the Central Area of Abuja are prime. However, there are commercial buildings of more than 10 to 12 floors and above in the Central Area District with lettable commercial and business spaces that are laying fallow for years without tenants or patronage. Maintenance cost is really prohibitive. Some of the developers now offer them for sale.
The Abuja Central Area was not planned for development by small or medium scale investments, but for big private and multinational companies. In such a case, the Federal Government must provide infrastructure and favourable policies that would attract such caliber of businesses and financial investments. Among others, availability of uninterrupted power is key, and has been a National predicament for long. All the necessary incentives must be in place to enable commercial investments in the Abuja Central Area to compete with the world renowned business centers.
