Gidi, Riel, Koen and Others Unveil Eko Beach City

Bennett Oghifo

A new community known as Eko Beach City is evolving at Abijo Lekki on the Lagos-Epe axis of Lagos.

Eko Beach City is strategically located in the tranquil environment of Abijo, Ibeju Lekki, which is popularly referred to as the emerging new Lagos, due to the massive developments of outstanding projects such as the Dangote Refinery, the Lekki Free Trade Zone, Lekki deep seaport, and Lekki international airport among others. 

Abijo is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, and Eko beach city sits right at the point where land meets the sea which makes this city one of a kind among its peers. This environment offers lots of benefits as a commercial hub to both residents and investors, according to its promoters. 

Eko Beach City is a convergence of technology, commerce, stunning architectural design, and soothing greenery, an ideal community for modern-day executives. It features top-of-the-line amenities, such as a technology hub for work, a mini-golf course, and a leisure city to make it easy for you to enjoy a great work-life balance.

There are residential and commercial plots, including a technology hub, and all of these are available for purchase by prospective buyers to live in or use for investment.

At the launch of this exquisite development at the weekend were the promoters: Kolade Adepoju, MD/CEO of Riel Homes; Ajewole Oluwatobiloba Akerele, MD/CEO of Gidi Real Estate & Investment Ltd.; Ejioye Ayorinde Isaac, COO

Gidi Real Estate & Investment Ltd., and Ogunjobi Oladunni, MD/CEO, Koen Homes.

“This is a vision, a mission and a movement,” said Akerele Tobi, MD/CEO of GIDI Real Estate Investment Limited, Developer of Eko Beach City, 

“We are creators of the first green and aqua city in Nigeria, and we are changing from the normal.”

He said they are “in partnership with a firm that has over 40,000 consultants. People believe in the vision to be able to enjoy a healthy environment they would love to be part of.”

The nation’s real estate sector, he said, has the potential of contributing to its development but that it has some challenges, particularly in the area of policies. “The main challenge is that our policies in the country can be changed overnight and investors would not want to come into a country that does not have regulated policies.

“If the government is ready to partner with the private sector the more, it would do a whole lot. Apart from that, the issue of land grabbers, being able to process your title would help us a lot. Also, to bridge the gap in housing deficit can only be done when the economy is good. Then many people would be able to afford homes. Like what we are doing in the private sector, for example, Eko Beach City.

“What we are doing is that at least, you do not have to break the bank, you should be able to afford a healthy environment. There is a difference between just buying land and buying comfort and peace of mind, where you can sleep at night and have the best feel.

“So, what would help us in Nigeria is our ability and the individuals themselves being able to collaborate. We are in business to make money, but the only thing that makes the difference with Eko Beach City is that we put the difference and the value before the money. That is the difference between us.”

Eko Beach City, he said, would have a helipad. “So, once there’s traffic, we are trying to say that there is a way we can beat this traffic. Also, we are working with our waterways.”

They plan to make the green, “that is why we are planting about 5,000 trees in Eko Beach City to get a purer air. That is why I would say that Eko Beach City is the answer and the future. With high return on investment.”

Discussing the new city, Ayorinde Ejioye, the COO of GIDI Real Estate and the Director of Finance of Eko Beach City, said,

“Our value is healthy living and this is a project that has a beach and a lake, and if you look at Lagos, Lagos is a place that is becoming an industrial hub with a lot of companies, like the Dangote refineries, Dangote Fertilizer Plant and other industrial areas.

“Now what this would cause is to bring a lot of carbon into the air and we need to start living clean in Lagos that is why the project intends to have trees to create a cooler and a cleaner city.”

He said Nigeria’s economy is sustained by the private sector, where real estate happens to be one of the strong players, adding that Eko Beach City intends to provide affordable housing, to grow the GDP of Nigeria.

The first solution in bridging the gap in housing deficit in Nigeria is to provide more affordable homes, “and that is what GIDI is about to do. GIDI is about giving you luxury, and healthy-living in a healthy environment.”

Ejioye appealed to the federal government for mortgage loans for real estate companies, through the Central Bank of Nigeria, stating that this would enable them to provide affordable homes.

According to Kolade Adepoju, the Managing Director/CEO of RIEL Homes said the collaboration among the real estate companies to develop Eko Beach City was deliberate.

Adepoju said, “When you want to do big things, you cannot do them alone. This 400 acres of land is a city, not an estate. All the partners believe more in collaboration than competition, so it’s better we collaborate to build something that would solve Nigeria’s real estate problem.

“This is why we came together to build something massive.

Here, we are going to have a golf course, a helipad.

One of the slogans we have is that from Eko Beach City, nowhere is far, and by the time this place is fully functional, we have a helicopter station to take people to where they want if they are residents of this city.

“On the long run, we want to make this place a green and aqua city. This place is the first green and aqua city in Nigeria, humbly I would say in West Africa.

“Everybody has their expertise, and all of these brands have something unique, so all of us are bringing our expertise together to create something huge.

“By the time this place is functional, we are going to put up barricades. When it comes to security, we are partnering with international brands which we won’t mention now, of which one is in the U.S. They are the ones incharge of our security, they have their way of mounting CCTV cameras, and advanced drones that you won’t know are there to curtail any security glitch.

“So, when this place is opened, there is a way this place would be that you won’t have access to this place, we are taking that into consideration. When it comes to the ocean flowing to this side, we are also putting many things in place.”