Eko Atlantic is arguably Africa’s most ambitious project and most significant real estate opportunity. The Fine & Country WA team had an exciting time exploring Eko Atlantic with Mrs. Ibiene Ogolo, MD, Eko Development Company.
Sitting on 10 million square meters of land, and 2km off the shore of ‘Bar Beach’ as we knew it, sits a jewel Eko Atlantic. Eko Atlantic is bounded by beautiful coastlines on the Western, Eastern and southern borders. The Great Wall of Lagos stands out as a shore protection wall separating Eko Atlantic from the Atlantic ocean. This new horizon city seeks to satisfy the needs for financial, commercial, residential and tourist accommodations in Lagos. The visionary project kicked off in 2002 and has made great strides since then. Eko Atlantic promises to be a self-sufficient city with a state of the art high-tech infrastructure with its own portable water Infrastructure and dedicated Power lines. Eko Atlantic resulted as a solution to protect the shoreline of Victoria Island and also to create a city that would be well-planned as well as developed in accordance with 21st century best practices. Speaking from the perspective of investment, this project is a critical part of the transformation of Lagos, Nigeria, and Africa at large.
In actual sense, there is a real dearth of knowledge about the Eko Atlantic project and its impact on the Environment. In keeping with one of the objectives of Our Refined Investor Series, (you can learn more about it here), addressing the myths and misconceptions, we delved in deeper to understand Eko Atlantic’s impact on the environment. At the start of the Eko Atlantic project, an Environmental Impact Assessment Report was commissioned and granted to Royal Haskoning, a leading EIA firm in consultation with the Federal Ministry of the Environment and the Nigerian Port Authority (NPA) as well as Lagos State Ministry of the Environment (LASMOE). The Eko Atlantic Shoreline and Reclamation Project seeks to provide approximately 1000 hectares of high-quality land for development within the heart of Lagos, and will indeed offer a long-term solution to the shoreline erosion problems at Victoria Island, Lagos but many people are unaware about the major positives. That’s why one of our objectives is to address the myths and misconceptions surrounding real estate in Nigeria. Fears around the Eko Atlantic are largely unfounded and relies on the assumption that all things Nigerian are fraught with a substandard approach.
To provide a bit of background, and include excerpts from the EIA report, The shoreline of Victoria Island has retreated significantly over the past century, and the main cause for this erosion began with the blocking of coastal sediment transport after the construction of two moles of breakwaters (between 1908 and 1912) at the entrance to the Port of Lagos. Coastal protection activity was frequently commissioned to reduce the erosion threat to Victoria Island, including several nourishment schemes, However, those attempts only temporarily mitigated the erosion and there continued to be intermittent flooding in this coastal area. Many would remember the erosion which culminated in 2005, when the protective beach disappeared with resultant flood damage to the road infrastructure and property along Bar beach.
The Eko Atlantic project adapted a two tonged approach to solve, firstly, the environmental threat of the intrusion of seawater and the damage that would have caused damage to commercial property along that axis, but even more so, providing additional strategically planned urban areas within Lagos, recognizing increasing population growth and aspirations for greater economic development.
This project is certainly a focal point for investors capitalizing on rich development growth based on massive demand – and a gateway to emerging markets of the continent. Eko Atlantic presents a unique opportunity for the discerning Investor and is unarguably Africa’s boldest and most visionary project.
