Metro and Castle Transitions into Next Phase of Development

Mary Nnah

Metro and Castle Limited, a full-service real estate company with a proven track record of delivery in real estate, is poised to transition into its next phase of development ideas, which is going way harder on its mission target of building 300 housing units at its inception in 2018.

According to its Managing Director /Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Abdul Adekunle Rasheed, when the company began the journey in 2018 its first five years goals and objectives were to provide 300 housing units and three retail outlets.

“Metro Group was conceived in 2018 and our ultimate goal is to provide good communities and conducive environments for people and all necessary infrastructures and facilities in place and also bridge the gap between fraudulent engineers and developers. We want to bridge that gap and make people feel very comfortable to invest their money in Nigeria.”

“We are hoping and working towards delivering at least 500 housing units within the next five years while we also upscale the environment with our third retail outlet.”

“We have other things coming in like the sports centre. We had to collapse the initial one because it was too small. It was 1, 200 square metres but now  we are building it on more than 4,000 square metres. We are going to have about three football pitches, badminton and some other   things in the sports centre. So, it is a bit more loaded than the old one”, Rasheed noted.

Expressing that Metro and Castle is striving to wrap up its first five years goals and then move to the second phase of its community development, he noted, “We are currently conceiving new estates as I speak. We have signed a couple of joint ventures, trying to acquire one or two properties here and there and development has begun in earnest.”

Rasheed recalled that the Metro and Castle Limited was born out of a need to provide community solutions to the Nigeria environment as a whole.

“Metro and Castle was conceived out of the frustration of many individuals, mostly people in diaspora. You hear stories like we bought a house from one Nigerian developer and the house is not ready for more than two years or we got duped. I think that gave us a problem to solve. So, we are not just doing business as usual, I believe we are in the environment to solve problems.”

Speaking on the progress it has made so far, the CEO said, “We also have the metropolis square, which is our retail arm and what we do there is retail/ supermarket. So, if we are doing community development, we believe some things have to be in place like supermarkets, sports centre and others.”

Speaking further on the company’s progress, he said, “When we came here, we were looking for the right environment and we chose the Atlantic Nominees Estate, Ajah because the documents here were very good; accessibility to the road is close, we also knew that Lagos State was projecting coming to this environment at that time – talking about the Free Trade Zone and all that. So, we knew this environment was right and then the cost of the land was also attractive for community development.”

“Like I have always said, the cost of building a structure anywhere in Lagos is almost the same but it is the cost of the Land that is the real driving factor. We wanted to be very cost conscious because we are providing these houses for the typical middle class. That is why we found ourselves here”, Rasheed said. 

Reiterating on the company’s objective to build 300 housing units in the first five years of its existence, the Metro and Castle CEO said, “We began the journey in 2018 and 300 houses were conceived. We listened closely to the market – what do they need? We are not like every random developer putting up structures and housing units based on his idea. But we went on research and found out that people actually need smaller units and from there we conceived our designs.”

He announced that the company has so far been able to accomplish at least 80 percent of its goals, adding, “We should have completed it a 100 percent but we lost about a year and half during Covid within that five-year space. So out of the 300 housing units, we were able to do over 260.  As at today, we have two of our retail outlets fully functional out of three and we are currently erecting the structure for the third one as I speak. We have the sports centre which is currently under rehabilitation as I speak.”

He opined that its environment and community has become better, noting that investors have really appreciated the company’s development while it has been very fortunate to have very prominent high-profile sportsmen investing in Metro Homes.

“This is the fifth year since we moved into this environment providing affordable housing and community development in Nigeria since 2018 and we have a number of footballers who have come onboard with a sizable number of units for investments because they have trust in us”, he noted.