BusinessDay 10 Apr 2018

Tuesday 10 April 2018
C002D5556
BUSINESS DAY
25
In association with
Exciting office experience beckons as The Wings
enters market with strong value propo sition
Stories by CHUKA UROKO
In the most formal style
before a distinguished audience,
The Wings Towers,
one of the eye-catching
architectural marvels on
Ozumba Mbadiwe Street, Victoria
Island, Lagos, walked into the
property market offering exciting
office work experience with
its strong and compelling value
proposition.
The Wings, a twin-tower
building, is a joint venture project
by Oando Plc and RMB Westport,
a South African real estate investment
and development firm.
Estate Links Limited and Jones
Lang LaSalle (JLL) are the lead
promoters/leasing agents.
The 14-floor, 27,000 square
metre Grade A office complex
stands massively by the Five
Cowrie Creek, giving it an unrivalled
location advantage which
is complemented by an existing
waterways transportation
system. “This is one-of-a-kind
development that guarantees its
tenants world class experience”,
Wallace Wilkins, a director at
RMB Westport, explained to
BusinessDay in an interview.
At the commissioning of
the building last week by Ibe
Kachikwu, the minister of state
for petroleum, Wale Tinubu, the
group chief executive of Oando
Plc, disclosed that, at Oando,
passion was not only one of
their core values, it drives their
ambitions, adding that the idea
for The Wings Complex was conceived
in 2009 but construction
kick-started in 2013.
Tinubu recalled that the building
started when the price of oil
was $100 per barrel, but they still
pushed on with construction
despite the 2014 crash in oil price
to $23 per barrel, the 60 percent
devaluation of the naira and the
13-month economic recession.
“Today, the two towers stand
tall as a testament to indigenous
companies like us who continue
to lead and set standard for excellence.
The project signifies the
end to a series of capital projects
that we have pioneered, invested
in and built”, he said.
The Wings actually stands tall
as a building to beat in terms of
elevation and façade. Wilkins
says “it is an elegantly designed
office building with innovative
usage of space to give optimal
day-to-day functionality. The
building is a seamless business
environment that combines
functionality, detail, services and
comfort for business”.
It is in the league of Heritage
Place in Ikoyi and Nestoil Tower
in Victoria Island which are, so
far, the only green buildings in
Nigeria with energy efficiency
that leaves tenants/occupiers
with reduced energy cost. Heritage
Place offers tenants as high
as 20 percent energy saving.
Interest in The Wings has been
quite encouraging, according
to the leasing agents. Gbenga
Olaniyan, CEO, Estate Links, confirmed
to BusinessDay that while
the West wing of the building
is occupied by Oando, the East
wing, which is open to the public,
is 34 percent let, hoping that with
the renewed investor interest in
the economy, the building will
be up to 80 percent let by the end
of this year.
In addition to its high-quality
finishing and small office plates
of 1000 square metres which
features 360-degree views to virtually
all workstations in any particular
tenant layout, The Wings
façade gives an alluring feature
view of the Lagos city, offering
comfort plus quality of work that
is comparable to international
standards.
“This façade system allows for
energy efficiency and adaptability
to climatic heat conditions”,
explained Lyall Dukes, Associate
Executive at Stauch Vorster Architects—the
architectural consultants
on the building.
Offices in the building are climatically
controlled to facilitate
maximum comfort with lighting
and visual stimulus aimed
at enhancing tenant enjoyment
and appreciation of the working
environment. Duke added that
the building also offers a high
level of security and comfort to
businesses with a high priority
on secure operating facilities and
peace of mind.
The building has capacity to
improve tenant’s operational
efficiency and boost employee
productivity. “It is a work environment
that is a pleasure to use
and interact with on a daily basis,
and this will result in better productivity
and positive attitude.
This building is iconic and easily
recognizable, creating an association
tenants can market and use
to their advantage”, Duke noted.
For purposes of security and
safety, The Wings has intelligent
building management systems
(IBMS) which are systems that
optimize the centralized control
of heating, ventilation, air
conditioning and lighting, thus
promoting its functionality. The
Continues on page 26
Event Diary
Mortgage refinancing
company underway in Kenya
As if taking a cue from Nigeria,
Kenya, the fast growing
East African country, is perfecting
plans to set up a mortgage
refinancing company, the Kenyan
Mortgage Refinance Company
(KMRC), which the country’s
Treasury explains, is to help to
meet the government’s aim of
providing 500,000 houses in five
years as well as make it easier for
banks to access long-term finance
for home loans
In Nigeria, the Nigerian Mortgage
Refinance Company (NMRC)
was set up to increase liquidity in
the country’s mortgage system,
drag down interest rate to single
digit and also facilitate the provision
of affordable housing for the
largely ‘homeless’ working class
population in the country.
But it remains to be seen what
impact the NMRC has made in
both the mortgage and housing
sectors four years after it was
set up with a mandate to also
facilitate the delivery of 172,000
housing units per annum.
As against Nigeria’s over a
million units, the East African
country has an estimated 200,000
annual housing shortfall, which is
expected to rise to 300,000 by 2020.
But President Uhuru Kenyatta has
assured that provision of affordable
housing is one of his four key
priority areas in his second term.
“Housing finance in Kenya
remains below its potential,” the
Treasury said in a document outlining
the creation of the Kenya
Mortgage Refinance Company
(KMRC), to be owned by the state,
commercial banks and financial
co-operatives.
KMRC is expected to be
licensed by the central bank in
February next year, with initial
debt financing of $160 million from
the World Bank for lending on to
financial institutions.
Once it starts operations, the
company will raise debt from
markets, including mortgagebacked
bonds, to lend to banks
and financial co-operatives using
their mortgage loan contracts with
customers as security.
Kenya had just 24,458 mortgage
loans valued at $2 billion
or 3.15 percent of GDP in 2015,
compared with about 30 percent
of GDP worth of outstanding
mortgages in South Africa.
As obtains in Nigeria, mortgage
lenders in Kenya, among them
KCB Group which has the biggest
share of the mortgages, usually
shy away from writing housing
loans mainly due to lack of longterm
deposits in the industry to
match them.