₦airaland Forum

Work updates from here...
Doing fence coping design.

We have commenced Plastering

Roofing is ongoing here.
The picture below is the security and Gen House. Not entirely clear, but will get a better shot by tomorrow...

The BQ roof skeletal works has began today too. Stay tuned.

We have started taking delivery of items we need for the work at hand.

2x4 Hardwood, 1x12x12 for scaffolding as well as bamboo for support etc.

We took delivery of bags of Cement about 150 for a start.

Mind you. We are Plastering all the structures here.

- Main building
- Security and Gen House
- 45m long fence

Wiring done completely...

As promised.
We are here now.

Windows have been installed as well as wiring

See photo updates below.

Good evening Viewers and Followers.
We are starting the Plastering of this project from Monday this coming week.

Kongaone:
Please what's the rough estimate of this project?

As at when we did it. Carcass was 14m

Good morning Viewers and followers

Keep following up with us.
We are keen to delivering good and quality services to our clients

Building leveling ongoing

Good morning Viewers

We should be rounding up the leveling by tomorrow. Stay tuned for more updates.

Work update.

Stay tuned here still.
Roofing of the Gen House and BQ to commence soon

Lintel works in Aba

Resuming this ASAP to full completion

We are at Lintel level now.
Stay tuned for picture updates from us here.

We used a total of 1,350 bags of Cement so far on the project. Decking of the main building alone was 230 Bags of Cement.

Picture from the completed decking works

We have completed the decking of the main building. The concrete pouring of the BQ and security house with Gen House parapet

The BQ parapet is set...

n3xt:
Everything rises and fall on leadership.

I agree with you but then, na still Nigerians dey the leadership not aliens.

spyder880:
You must be talking about Enugu land costs?

LOL. Brother. No be only Enugu o. Owerri own tire me. I kinda ask the guy, those of you calling these humongous amount of monies for land. Can you actually afford to pay for it yourselves.

Guess what he told me. No, he knows they can't that's why the call the amount for people that can buy it.

Now I ask myself. Why place a value on something you know you cannot afford yourself. Are you being fair to all concerned.

Its sickening these days, propel just wake up and put price on something without due consideration.

Tell me the fate of a common man who earns even 50,000 as minimum wage. You can't buy a dime or make a fortune in the current society today if you don't have other means of income.

We are at Lintel here now.

Badgers14:
Understood....

Maybe I should be more specific? .

Malls are becoming Obsolete in the U.S precisely.

Amazon was and still is the number one killer..

Malls are just on the brink of death by a thousand cuts. Do you know how many malls are sitting empty in the U.S? Lots of them,

Most business renting the large spaces are "reinventing " themselves and investing more in the online space.. less overhead and more efficient (sort of).

Some big tenants are gradually going out of business, SEARS etc.. Jcpenney, Macy's, Kohls etc.. refusing to renew their leases in some locations and rather diverting to online sales. Moreover, foot traffic have reduced as well in the malls.

Funny enough most of all the big mall tenants are in one financial trouble or another... late last year, there was a rumored take over of Jcpenney by Amazon ( I pray that's not true ).

Malls here may face the same thing in the nearest future. Jumia, Konga and their likes are taking over.

Only small scale shops and neighborhood or main open markets will survive because it's highly informal and the level of education and technological advancement in the population has a role to play in their purchasing style or spending style.

Soon its gonna be clearly formal and informal pattern of shopping... Online malls will have to shift away physical malls, though it still have alot of work to do because Nigerians haven't built that much online trust to shopping things online. I know people do at the moment, but say 15 - 25% of the entire population of those who ought to be doing it are the ones doing it.

I too do shop online but sometimes am a bit skeptical, I have to literally do background checks on the dealer somehow.

Informal shopping method will remain in Nigeria for a very long time. You know why, people who have zero trust to buying things online would have that as their safe zone. In this informal shopping method, they will share the in the percentage of shoppers from the formal shopping in physical malls whose prices are way up, which is understandable because they have bills to pay and cover for their liabilities and operational costs of running the malls...

Formal mall may sell a good worth - 100K
Informal shopping area will sell same good - 80 - 85K...

An average Nigerian who is not used to mall shopping would go to the informal shopping area to purchase that same exact good.

Just like people buy names and collections abroad for huge costs, Nigerians buys what gives them same or equivalent value. For example, a Gucci watch may be sold $500 approximately #210,000 in maybe a mall. A typical Nigerian would go and buy #Aba Gucci watch or another watch say #5,000 or #10,000 at most and tell you that, they tell the same time.

This topic is more than an elaborate one though. Depending on where you are viewing it from.

n3xt:
I worked in several malls in Nigeria for years and I know how the management struggle to meet their financial obligations, even the ones managed by Portfolio Asset Managers.

Most of the beautifully dressed visitors (even celebrities) are only using the malls as destination spots to hangout rather than to shop.

So the “over 200m population” crap data/analysis is totally wrong with limiting consequences in a country where inflation is at all-time high.
This data might work for churches who are ready to collect the small monies the big shops are looking down upon but definitely not for major mall tenants who pay heavily in foreign currencies.

I knew the Ibadan mall and other malls coming up in many south west states are going to face lots of trouble maintaining their facility right from the start because they were built on optimism rather than reality.

________
About the same time Ibadan was being proposed, we were asked to look for spaces in other cities in Ogun state. I laugh out loud and shared my experience in a struggling shopping center in Abeokuta about 13 years ago with the team.
The owner of a compact shopping center in the Abeokuta city center had to open his doors/lower his pricing drastically to the poorest of the poor in order to increase foot traffic to the property.

I agree completely with a compact mall idea - The Ebeano, Blenco... way. If possible, add a space for a church Jesus never fail!

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Badgers14:
If I may,

Offering my concurrence here, in my non expert opinion, malls are not a good business to be in mathematically and economically speaking. It is just a money guzzling waste of fund, not profitable... when I say malls, I mean the way mall is ran and operated in "precisely " U.S.

At a point one has to stop and ask, what makes a mall, a mall? What attributes should a building have to be designated or qualified to be a mall?

The malls as we know it in the western world will struggle to exist in Nigeria..let's say for the sake of argument that it cost between 1.8bn to 2.5bn to build a standard mall with all the trimmings.. what about ROI? The occupancy rate?

How many businesses have the financial muscle to rent a space in the mall on a 5 year lease? And renew when it's up.
If the amenities are fine, foot traffic will be high but most people will come there to snap pictures not to pay the premium to buy things at the mall.

Why should they pay 15k for that shoe when they can bargain in an open market and pay 8k for it from their 30k minimum wage salaries ?

Folks for sure will come to hang out, use open Wi-Fi, bring out their families to window shop and go back home after spending 3 hours or so and just buying ice cream for the kids or their babe.. maybe buy a plate of rice and chicken to fill up the hungry stomachs and then go home..

Who's going to buy the goods and swing by for the services offered in the mall?

Case study shoprite, although not a mall oer se but could be seen as equivalent of say, Walmart, target, lindl etc... folks were excited when they arrived, people were hitting there head on the wall just to get in and see what it was all about and take pictures... now, the pictures are littered every where on the internet ... not that many people are ready to go there like they used to. It is now mostly a hang out spot.

Your suggested solution is not bad either, 'compact malls'.. again, how long is a piece of string? What qualifies as a mall?

I think in a way (sorta) we do have that every where in the form of plazas but a compact mall? The owner will be bleeding money on a monthly basis.

Even the plazas, do you know any plaza around you? Do you remember when it was built , how it looked? Do you remember how it looks now? The attachment shops are even higher than the number of shops in the original building.

I heard of a plaza somewhere in the East, the owner had this idea of compact mall in mind, structure was erected... not too long, the food court, the space in the middle where converted to shops by some had heads in the market ( a slow process tho. One attachment. The second the third etc..).. when the individual saw what's going on people were making more money on the attachment than he was, he fought a losing battle and gave up, what a heļl , "I am making more money now anyways" so he gave up the fight.

Today, I can submit that there are more attachment shops than there are lock up shops.

You are 101% correct in your submission. In fact you reason on the same exact way I see things before venturing it. Not many would understand your thinking style because not many may see beyond where you are staying these facts from.

Not just malls alone, same principle applies to so many areas of life. Reason why we say what may work in B country or location may not exactly work in A country or location.

Had a chat with a friend yesterday about the overly high cost of land in some part of east, he said, don't I see how much people are buying land in Lagos. I responded to him "Don't you see the economic value and viability of Lagos" as compared to the location we are reviewing. Lagos is termed a commercial hub, the state in particular is termed a civil servant state with little or no industries and no were near IGR of Lagos. So why put such amount on land just because you feel people pay more for land in Lagos.

We just have no control in Nigeria over so many things. Just so many things. People just wake up and hike up price of things just because they feel someone would pay for it.

Well, its a system that hopefully someday may purify itself and set a standard of operation. Government agencies are even worst, those whose responsibility is to control these things.

Watch how good our staircase is coming out.

Decking concrete work update
We started with Beam works and staircase

Expect some updates from us here today.

Our project here is progressing too speedily.