The real estate valuation of the multi-billion Britam Towers has fallen by an astonishing Sh. 1.13 billion. The fall in valuation has been attributed to low occupancy at the building.
This has seen the building now get valued at Sh. 6.9 billion down from Sh. 8.04 billion. The commercial building in Nairobi owned by British-American Investments Company (Britam). The tower is located along Hospital Road, in the Upper Hill neighborhood of Nairobi. The building is the international headquarters of Britam. It also serves as the regional headquarters of the business conglomerate in East and Central Africa. In July 2018, nearly one year after the building was completed, Britam, the skyscraper’s owner-developer, began letting the building to prospective tenants.
The building is currently at 47 percent occupancy rate. This way below the the 98 percent occupancy recorded by UAP-Old Mutual Tower—a skyscraper completed mid-2017 and located in the same area. It also means that the building is attracting lower rent and losing millions to the rival UAP-Old Mutual Tower.
“In the last few years, the performance of the commercial and residential housing property in Kenya has been negatively affected by excess supply amid depressed demand,” says Britam in annual report. “The impact has been low occupancy levels, low rental yields, and consequently revaluation losses depressing profitability.”
Britam Tower is a modern commercial office building, designed to international standards.It is 133 meters high with a spire of 67 meters at the top of the building. This brings the total building height to 200meters making it the tallest building in Kenya and the 3rd tallest in Africa.
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The tower has an area of 31,500 square meters lettable office space in a building of 31 storey and has an adjacent 11 storey parking silo. This together with the 3 basement parking levels that has an accommodation for 1,000 cars. It encompasses a simple, rational three-dimensional Geometry.