Stories by Maduka Nweke
Construction work on the $300 million smart city project located along the Lekki-Epe axis has commenced.
The project is being promoted by the Elegushi Royal Family and a private developer, Channeldrill Resources Limited.
The Imperial International Business City (IIBC) project, which stakeholders have acknowledged to be the first eco-friendly smart business city in Africa, will be part of the 200- hectare land reclamation aimed at, expanding the Ikate kingdom.
According to the promoters, the project is funded through a British Foreign Direct Investment of about $300 million and off plan sales. They said the city would be zoned into residential, mixed use and commercial areas, adding that there will be considerations for low, medium and high density areas as well as lagoon/water view area with a plot costing between N64 million and N429 million based on the payment plan and size of plot.
Besides, the scheme would be accessed through three locations: Freedom Road through Lekki Phase 1 (Lekki Third Roundabout); Kunsenla Road by Fourth Roundabout of Lekki-Epe Highway and Oba Saheed Ademola Elegushi Road by spare supermarket before Jakande. Another access road is being planned through Femi Okunu by Jakande Roundabout.
Managing Director of ChannelDrill, Olufemi Akioye, while speaking at the Ground-breaking and Investor’s Interaction forum recently, noted that the city being smart and eco-friendly will define the standard of urban development in Africa.
“The island will attract the best companies from the globe. A place where work, home and play are within walkable distances from each other, set in a tropical landscape that will be safe, relaxing and a pleasure to behold and live in.
IIBC will be an island that will be built to global standard in a bid to ensure perfection in infrastructural efficiency, connected by future high speed water transportation, high speed rail and express highways to other parts of the Lagos mainland, island and beyond,” he said.
The new city plans to integrate smart technologies and distinctive features, which will make it first self-sustaining eco-friendly smart business district. For instance, real data of traffic flow within the city are connected to sensors that match the surface traffic congestion (loads on surface transport) to free roads and the sensors also give active surveillance, monitoring and alerts at vantage points within the city (real time adaptive traffic management).
Smart emergency response, crime prevention (data centre); electricity – smart meters, smart grid and for energy optimisation meters are some of the facilities connected through the home area network (HAN) to advance metering infrastructure (AMI) with wired thermostats that are connected to the grid.
The technology will help with adjusting electricity to buildings based on consumptions at different times of the day as it helps eradicate blackout
Proposed amenities include roads with walk and bicycle ways, waterways and lakes, underground drainage, sewage treatment, water and water treatment plant, 1-independent gas fired electricity and cooking gas piped to every house, fibre optic cable, cloud enabled communication network and smart city/house infrastructure for willing subscribers, a mini golf course and shopping mall.
Akioye, explained further that the plans for the IPP in the smart city is to ensure that the city is self-sustained.
Besides, the use of IPP within the city will ensure that there is no need for the use of generator by inhabitants of the city, leading to clean energy.
He also explained that the waste treatment plant to be built on the island will also be producing methane that will be used for production of more electricity or cooking gas.
Shedding more light on the power project within the city, Akioye explained that due to power supply constraints, the developers re plaanning to have a new substation on the Island, supplied directly from an existing substation on the mainland via a subsea cable.
Also, this, he further explained, will act as a secondary supply to the city and could potentially be used to supply surplus power generated to the existing Lagos distribution network.
