A 25-storey apartment, office and entertainment complex has stepped closer to realisation after OIB Oda Real Estate selected K2N Architecture & Engineering Consultancy to prepare a final design.
The concept design, prepared by K2N Architecture, was chosen on November 27, 2018, at a ceremony held at Elilly Hotel on Joseph Tito Street. The building will be constructed in front of the headquarters of the Ministry of Health along Sudan Street, close to Black Lion Hospital.
The decade-old firm, which is currently supervising the construction of laboratories and dining halls at Hawassa University and the construction of the Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority headquarters, won the selection after vying with six other companies.
Floated on May 10, 2018, and closed on August 10, 2018, the tender initially attracted 17 companies, who bought the bid documents, but only six of them submitted their concept designs.
“We took into consideration technical capacity, human power, capital and experience in the selection process,” Mengistu Kebede, CEO of OIB Oda, told Fortune.
The building, together with parking spaces, will rest on 2,795Sqm of land granted by Goma Kuteba Plc, and will have a total floor space of 38,000Sqm and a height of 110m.
The final engineering design of the building will be finalised within seven months, after which a tender to hire a contractor will be floated, said Dereje Gashaw, deputy general manager of K2N. The building is expected to be completed in five years at an estimated engineering cost of two billion Birr.
The design by MH Engineering plc, established in 1997, and currently supervising the construction of Addis Abeba National Stadium and consulting on Bole Lemi Industrial Park, was in second place, while Zeleke Belay Consulting Architects was third.
OIB Oda is a share company (OIC) formed by Goma Kuteba, Oromia International Bank, Oromia Insurance Company and five individuals. Goma Kuteba, a rubber products manufacturer currently under the ownership of siblings, owns half of the shares in the company as part of the land grant agreement.
The decade-old OIB Oda has a 10pc stake, according to its president, Abe Sano. For Oromia International Bank, OIB Oda is part of its 23.8 billion Br worth of assets, which also includes shares in companies such as Ethio-Switch as well as the nine-year-old OIC.
Getachew Yirga, an assistant professor at Bahir Dar University’s College of Business & Economics, believes that kind of construction has multiple benefits beside its commercial purpose.
“Multiple-storey buildings save land, and construction of buildings will stimulate the construction industry and provide employment opportunities,” he said. “But the apartments should target the middle-income residents of the city.”
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