Traders dealing in hardware products and services have now got a home after city tycoon Sudhir Ruparelia officially opened the Hardware City complex in downtown Kampala near Nakasero Market. The complex which has 281 shops and 66 residential apartments will be home to all sorts of construction materials and services.
According to the businessman, the state of the art building sitting on about 27000 square meters of prime land, cost $25M to construct. The piece of land on which it sits cost $7M. Sudhir revealed that construction of the building took 18 months to finish.
“What we had in mind when started to work on this project was to provide a one stop center to offer hardware products and services. This would help customers to buy everything in one place. We wanted to create a situation where a customer doesn’t move from one place to another looking for hardware goods or services,” Sudhir told tenants at the grand opening of the multi-storied building.
Unlike other commercial buildings in the city centre, tenants at the Hardware City complex will pay their monthly rent in Uganda Shillings and they will face no monthly rent increment for the next two years.
“‘Since it is a new building, we are not going to increase monthly rent charges for the next two years,” Sudhir assured tenants.
Rajiv Ruaparelia the managing director of Crane Management Limited, the company behind the development of this magnificent building described the building as modern, safe, secure and of high standards when compared to their neighboring commercial buildings.
Rajiv, the only son of Sudhir, said they have secured a 500kv transformer to supply the building with constant power and will provide tenants with pre-paid sub meters through which they will be able to buy electricity. He said it will be a private service akin to Umeme’s Yaka system where the customer pays for any amount of electricity at any time.
Rajiv said the building has a parking space that can accommodate 800 vehicles. Tenants to park their vehicles will pay a monthly subscription of $50; Non-tenants will pay $100 per month. He added that building will be open between 6am to 10pm because people need enough time to do their business.