Sungate project at Hosea Kutako regains momentum

The mixed-use development which is situated on 408 hectares of land close to the Hosea Kutako International Airport has regained momentum after a delay in its initial commencement.
Currently the project has had about N$80 million pumped in on basic infrastructure and rezoning, with further developments in the pipeline.
Local developers, the Accolade Property Group’s General Manager Geon Ellis, this week spoke to the Economist on the progress of the project.
“We have now started with the project again and it is not a relaunch, as everything has been approved, all the services are out there and we have electricity, water and sewerage systems. Everything that might have postponed the project has been dealt with and is now done,” he said. The Economist learnt that the protracted delay of the project was due to the zoning area around the national road network which needed to be altered. This change to the zoning proved to be a major statutory obstacle, with the proposed alteration impeding on the initial Sungate area. “It delayed the project in the sense that the road reserve impeded with the development and selling of the erven, and the project was halted resulting in foreign investors pulling the plug, since it was time consuming. This was actually a blessing in disguise as now the project is a wholly local initiative,” Ellis said.

Despite the delays, Ellis said the project is flying and developments are well under way. The initial phase (phase 1AB) consists of erven for a hotel site, a filling station with trucking facilities, warehousing and logistics facilities as well as car rental depots and plots for service industries. In February this year, their first client, the Millennium Group commenced with the construction of a Puma service station, which is still work in progress.
“In April there was completion of services of phase 1AB. We have 25 erven now in phase 1AB of which 10 have been sold already,” he said.
“In the next month or two the remaining erven will be sold and we can safely progress to the other phases of the project,” he added. According to Ellis the overall value of the current project is very difficult to determine because of the ever changing property market but he said at the moment they are doing an evaluation and survey on the property market to determine what the development and construction would amount to.
Upon completion Sungate will be ideally located as a hub for commerce and industry, serving the country as well as the SADC region in accordance with Vision 2030, Accolade Property Group said.