Kigali City Tower

Since his accession to power in 2000, President Paul Kagame has sought to transform Rwanda from an impoverished country dependent on subsistence agriculture into a middle income country with a strong service sector.[1] This policy, which is based on liberalising the economy, privatising state owned industries and reducing red tape for businesses,[2] has led to a strong GDP growth between 2004 and 2010 of 8% per year.[2] The changing economy has prompted a construction boom as the need for office and urban residential space has increased.[3]

The Kigali City Tower project was begun in 2006[4] by Rwandan businessman Hatari Sekoko, through his company Doyelcy Limited.[5] Sekoko, a Rwandan Patriotic Front veteran of the Rwandan Civil War,[6] worked in Japan from 1995 to raise capital,[7] before returning to Rwanda to start a coffee distribution business and later diversifying into real estate and hospitality.[6] The first phase of the project was the construction of the car park building, which began in 2007.[8] At that stage the tower was proposed as a circular building with a spiral design, which would act primarily as a viewing platform.[8] By 2008, Sekoko's team had changed the building's shape to elliptical in order to create more floor space within the tower.[6]

Sekoko contracted Chinese company China Civil Engineering Construction to construct the building,[9] and also sourced raw materials from his own depot in Guangzhou, China.[7] The building was completed in early 2011,[4] and retailers and companies began to occupy the space thereafter.[10] The three-screen Century Cinema complex was completed in March 2013 and opened in May 2013.[11]

Kigali City Tower is on Avenue du Commerce, also known as KN 76 Street, in Nyarugenge District, which is the central business district of Kigali.[12] The building is on the site of the former central bus station, which was closed in 2005.[13]

The building consists of three components: the tower, which rises to 20 stories,[14] the 4-story commercial center, and a car parking block which is also 4 stories tall.[14] As of 2013 the tower is the tallest building in Kigali and Rwanda.[15][16] The total retail floor space is around 10,000 square metres (110,000 sq ft) while office space is 7,000 square metres (75,000 sq ft).[14]

The tower block is occupied mostly by office space, with only the ground, lower ground and top floors being retail.[17] Each floor of the tower has 336 square metres (3,620 sq ft) of office space available.[18]

The largest retailer in the complex was a branch of the Kenyan supermarket chain Nakumatt, which occupied the ground and lower ground floors of the commercial centre,[19][20] as well as the ground floor of the car park building.[19] This was Nakumatt's second Kigali store, the other was in the Union Trade Centre.[21] South African clothing store Mr Price opened its first Rwandan branch in the complex in 2011, run by franchisee Deacons Kenya,[22] while luxury coffee house Bourbon Coffee runs a cafe and outdoor seating area, one of its five outlets in the city.[23]

The third floor of the commercial center houses the Century Cinema complex.[11] The cinema has four screens: three regular screens with 233, 135, 70 seats respectively,[11] and a 4D film screen (marketed as 5D) which seats 18, the first of its kind in East Africa.[11] Other retail providers include a food court, on the first floor of the commercial centre,[24] a fitness center and a daycare nursery.[14]

Retail space within the tower consists of a bar/restaurant on the lower ground floor,[20] a branch of Bank of Kigali on the ground floor,[19] and a restaurant with roof top bar and nightclub on the top floor.[17]