By Margaretta wa Gacheru (posted 14 February 2020 for Rotary Timeline)
The 2020 Rotary District 9212
Conference (DISCON 2020 for short) will primarily take place in the new Sarit
Expo Centre which just opened last year in Nairobi’s up-market suburb of
Westlands.
Technically speaking, the Expo Centre
is part of the third phase of Sarit Centre, which itself was the very first
enclosed shopping mall in all of East Africa.
The first phase of the Centre was
completed in 1983. But the idea evolved out of a business partnership between
two friends, V.S. Shah and Maneklal Rughani, both of whom ran family
businesses, including bookstores upcountry. The Rughani businesses originally
were in Karatina while the Shah’s were in Murang’a.
In 1965 the two joined forces and
started the Textbook Centre on Kijabi Street in Nairobi. At the time, the Shah
family lived on two plots in Westlands which would eventually be replaced by [the
original] Sarit Centre.
It was in 1973 when a close family
friend came to visit the Shahs and advised them to “never sell this land. Instead, you should buy the adjacent
plots because this land is blessed,” the visitor said.
Shah
took him seriously. Together with Rughani they followed their friend’s advice
up until they owned five acres in Westlands. They had already begun thinking
about building a giant shopping centre. But in 1976, Rughani traveled to London
and saw the magnificent Brent Cross Shopping Mall. That was something of an
epiphany for him because now that he had seen London’s first enclosed shopping centre,
it was now clear what the two families would do with those five acres.
“It
took some time after that before construction began in 1981 since they needed
to do our research and planning,” says Nitin Shah, Chief Executive Officer of
the Sarit Centre. “They did market studies, developed the architectural design
and all the other planning that was required,” he adds.
The
process was temporarily waylaid in 1982 due to the coup attempt on the Kenya
Government. But by 1983, what Nitin now calls Phase One of the Centre was fully
built, all 200,000 square feet of it.
Starting
out with only two retail stores, the Textbook Centre and Uchumi’s Super Market,
it wasn’t until 1986 when all the space was filled with retail stores.
“Most
of the first tenants were start-ups, such as Healthy U and Hotpoint,” adds
Nitin who says the concept of a shopping mall was initially new, but once the
public got used to it, Sarit became a popular venue and business began to boom.
By
1994, Nitin explains that the demand for more retail space at Sarit had grown.
It was around that time that he had gone to Singapore and seen shopping centres
that were extremely innovative.
“I
came back with a proposal that Phase two needed to include a cinema, a food
court, a gym and exhibition hall that would allow us to accommodate both local
and international exhibitions in that space,” he says, noting that these were
new ideas at the time.
Phase
two quickly attracted international franchises like Woolworths and Mr Price.
Plus their original brands bought into the new wing and expanded their
businesses significantly.
For instance, Uchumi grew from 10,000
to 50,000 square feet. Textbook Centre expanded from 3,000 to 10,000 square
feet. And even a specialty store like Healthy U grew from 1,000 to 3,000 square
feet. Plus, the food court featured nine different food franchises. In
addition, Phase two was more entertainment- and activity-oriented. At the same
time, the number of visitors moving about the Centre easily doubled.
Meanwhile, the families continued to
plan and consider the possibilities of expanding Sarit even further. They had
gradually bought still more adjacent land over the years until they lastly
owned 12 acres.
The decision to embark on Phase Three
was made in 2012. But it posed a challenge: how best to utilize that land? How
to develop a clear vision and a master plan for the future of Sarit?
It was a that point that the families
called in expert advice from abroad to help them devise that master plan.
“What we want Phase three to become is
‘a city within a city,” says Nitin who adds that construction didn’t start
right away.
“It began in February of 2017,” adds
Atul Shah, the Centre’s financial manager. “The construction is ongoing,” continues
Nitin who is thrilled that already, a number of new international retail firms
have come on board Phase three, including L.C. Wakiki, Clark Shoes and
Sketchers as well as others like Carrefour from France which came in to replace
Uchumi which has had its share of financial woes.
In
total, as of now, Sarit houses over 500,000 square
feet of space occupied by a diversity of retail shops, offices, medical
facilities and other utilities. Over 25,000 visitors come to the Centre every
day. And the families have even constructed a nine-level parking ‘silo’ that
can hold no less than 900 cars.
Phase three will also include a new gym facility, cinemas,
bowling alleys and even a children’s playground. And while not all the
businesses have moved in as yet, the Sarit Expo Centre itself has already become a popular venue for international
exhibitions as well as private functions and banquets like the one the DISCON
2020 will be hosting on the final night of the conference.
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