Here’s why Heritage Place is haven for corporate, multinational tenants

Amid the glut in the prime office space market in Nigeria today, there are still some products out there that stand out and command demand because of their peculiar attributes and, more importantly, their strong value propositions which tenants or buyers find too compelling to resist.

Heritage  Place, a Grade A office building located strategically on the intersection of Luggard Avenue and Kingsway Road in Ikoyi,  Lagos,  is one of such products. The building is the first, if not the only, green building that is Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified in Lagos at the moment.

The LEED-certification, which is an accreditation that started in the United States, looks at things that reduce a building’s carbon footprint and energy use. It takes into consideration the architectural design of the building, the material, the cost of construction which embodies the life-cycle cost of being in that building that has to be much lower, the air-flow within the building,  the health, safety and environment (HSE) issues, the glaze and the orientation of the building.

It also considers all the things that promote wellness for the inhabitants of the building; it is a lot cheaper to service and maintain the building over its life-cycle and the return on investment is high.

In any green building such as Heritage Place, everything has to be efficient. This is why energy efficiency here is high to the advantage of occupants. The energy mix in the building, according to its promoters, is much lower than what obtains in other buildings such that energy cost is about 30-40 percent lower.

For these reasons and more, Heritage Place, which stands on 14 floors with 16,000 square metres gross lettable area (GLA), enjoys significant occupancy rate estimated at 90 percent in a market where commercial office vacancy rate is deep, hovering between 20 and 30 percent as at Q4 2018.

Multinational companies including American computer technology corporation, Oracle, has found this ultra-modern, eco-friendly building a preferred haven to carry out operations in Nigeria for reasons other than its iconic architectural layout similar to the towers of New York.

Other corporate and multinational tenants in this iconic building which features large, flexible and efficient floor plates suitable for built-to-suite international requirement of an open, healthy and safe work environment are Actis, Andersen Tax, Visa, Verod Capita, etc.

Heritage Place was developed by Actis, in collaboration with its development partners—Primrose Development Company (PDC) and Laurus Development Partners. With raised floors and suspended ceilings it is designed for high space efficiency, with segments including reception area, meeting rooms, café, coffee shop and Plaza. Security-wise, digitalised registration is made for every visiting individual, including a face-capture system that helps the smart building to be fully aware of people’s presence in it.

 Actis, a leading investor in growth markets across Africa, Asia and Latin America, concerns itself with details as little as the indoor air quality within the building and designed to be more energy efficient than comparable buildings and.

According to officials of the company, Heritage Place development is in line with “Actis Strategy” which is  to be in the Grade A market with a location and product that they can put their name behind.

Funke Okubadejo,  a Director at Actis, told BusinessDay in an interview that when Actis, which holds interests in energy, financial services, healthcare, consumer and real estate sectors in Nigeria, began investing in this flagship office project in Nigeria, it considered the sharp undersupply of good quality office buildings as an opportunity.

“The undersupply stemmed from dearth of long term capital and skills to develop an international Grade A office space”, Okubadejo explained, adding, “when we conceived the investment, it was with the mind of raising the bar with a world class development with offering quality office space suitable for the modern work environment which is more open and collaborative than secular arrangements prevalent in the past,” she added.

With the realisation that a high-end quality office environment had shifted from having occupants tend to their needs of environment maintenance, consumption or leisure, the development incorporates quality service delivery to ease that burden.

“Occupiers can rely fully on the managed services provided that focuses on health and safety, and security that have been factored in the development and conception of the office building,” Okubadejo said further.

Heritage Place developers have a track record of investments in some of the well appreciated destination retail malls such as the Ikeja City Mall and currently in its portfolio is the Jabi Lake Mall, Abuja.

In response to the demand for top class standard office space, there has been influx of investment in the office segment in the last five years and Okubadejo sees more of such investment coming. In Ikoyi and Victoria Island alone, about 50,000 square meters of additional space, some of which are currently under construction will be delivered in the next few years.

With the help of a general improvement in the business confidence in the country, though supply is believed to have gone ahead of demand, demand is firming up, according to Actis. “Our sense is that uptick in demand for existing space will continue to get stronger and that would ultimately result in additional supply,” the Actis Director said.

According to Actis, real estate sector is directly impacted by the level of economic growth; what happens in the overall economy impacts on how people behave, their level of confidence in making new decisions to move into new space, buying new homes or expanding their businesses and thus directly impacts demand for real estate.

CHUKA UROKO & TEMITAYO AYETOTO