The Nairobi Metropolitan Services plans to set up underground parking bays in the city centre.
Through a public-private partnership venture, NMS director general Mohammed Badi said it is seeking a private investor to put at least Sh5 billion into the project. The total estimated cost of the project was not immediately known.
The project aims to convert Machakos Country Bus and Nairobi Law Courts parking area into an underground parking bay.
Badi said international firms in Australia and two European countries have shown interest in the public-private partnership (PPP).
NMS is working closely with the newly Public Private Partnership Directorate, domiciled at the National Treasury and headed by director general Chris Kirigua.
"We have engaged him and he is very optimistic on the project,” Badi said.
Kirigua is said to have contacts of companies and countries interested in the 25-year PPP.
According to the plan, investors will construct and operate both projects (Machakos Country Bus and Nairobi Law Courts parking) and hand over the projects once they get their investment back.
In March, NMS announced the popular upcountry bus park and Sunken Park along Aga Khan Walk will be turned into an underground parking silo that will be digitally operated.
Badi said the bus park will soon be converted into a multi-storey parking area where motorists will be charged hourly.
He said the move is part of a bigger plan to integrate hourly parking in Nairobi where a number of parking areas in the capital will be converted into underground parking bays.
“A motorist will pay through mobile money, leave his or her car there and it will be parked for you in whichever floor,” Badi added.
The NMS boss said the plan will be similar to Holy Family Basilica, where the church put up a multi-storeyed parking bay with 536 parking slots, an increase of 416 parking spaces.
The four-floor parking facility was implemented by the China Zhongxing Construction Company and commissioned in December 2019.
Paytech Company was also contracted to equip the facility with a state-of-the-art smart parking solution including an access control system, parking guidance system and electric vehicle charging system.
“We have seen it is affordable and we are now going to embark as a county to ensure that there’s enough underground parking for residents,” the NMS boss said.
The parking bay at Holy Family Basilica cost Sh1 billion but NMS intends to make it more than twice as large.
Last July, NMS automated Desai Road, Machakos Bus station, Sunken Car Park (along Aga Khan walk) and Nairobi law courts parking in preparation for the introduction of hourly parking in the city centre.
On March 18, 2020, President Uhuru Kenyatta directed there be automated parking facilities in at least three areas within Nairobi.
The Cytonn Real Estate 2018 Report said demand for parking bays has an average yield of 9.1 per cent due to the increasing number of vehicles coupled with inadequate public parking spaces, especially in Nairobi’s Central Business District.
The CBD is the most lucrative region in which to own and operate parking bays that rake in an average of Sh12,000 a month; in Karen it's Sh10,862, Parklands Sh10,500, Gigiri Sh10,500 and Upper Hill Sh9,500.
(Edited by Bilha Makokha)
