Illubiri Residents Promised Elevated Experience

Bennett Oghifo

Ilubirin Foreshore Projects Limited, developer of an exquisite project known as Ilubirin, in Lagos, has promised residents of the evolving city what they described as elevated living.

The company recently held an exclusive Open-house Block Party and interactive tour of the city’s meticulously designed apartments. The first phase of these apartments is set for completion early this year, according to the Marketing Manager,

Loretta Lekema-Okoro.

She said, “What we’re very particular about is to ensure that everybody who is a resident in Iluburi would have an elevated experience.

“So elevated experience means that you’re not going to come in and then you’re going to start struggling for the things that make living to be comfortable. You’re going to have all of that built in. If you see, even in this block, we already have everything planned so that people are comfortable when you just even stay in the building.”

She said they have “nine hectares of expanding land. It’s mixed use. What that would essentially mean is that we’re going to have multiple components of development across from where we are currently, which is the phase one, where we have 190 units of apartments in one, two, and three bedrooms.

“And then we’re also going to have multiple facilities and amenities on the project premises. 

“There’s going to be an event center, restaurants, and a promenade, which basically means that we’ll have people sit outside and enjoy views of the lagoon as they are here to relax. “We’re going to have a conference center, ambulance, ambulatory service, which means that we’ll have an ambulance center, medical help, first aid, where people would be able to, at least, get basic treatment and they can move on.”

She said other blocks have been planned for within the development, even though they are not yet built. “We know and we have an idea of what each block would contain. Some would be offices, some would be businesses, some would be shopping centers, some would be various things. We just have a lot of things that are planned around.

“There’s a hotel also on the premises. There’s going to be a high-rise block that would have multiple use, so there’ll be offices, there’ll be companies that could also come and take up space. So it’s just a whole lot of things.

Because we’re also very close to the road, if you notice, even in this room where we are at, you can’t hear the cars, and that’s because we have double glazed. 

“So even when you now have a traffic jam, where you have cars horning and all, you know, Lagos-like, you who is a resident, you’re not going to have all that noise. You’re insulated away from it because we’ve taken that attention to detail to mind in the design, in the planning, in the implementation, and the building, which means that we are going to take that tradition and that culture through every element of the design and implementation and building of the property. 

They also made provision for flood control in the city, saying, “there is no way that it would flood if it starts to rain. Everywhere is going to be paved, there’s going to be green areas. So even though you’re walking through an area that is a residential area, you would have greenery, so we’re going to plan landscape there, so that way everything just generally comes out balanced and people are not having to worry. 

“So we’re making sure that we have all of this experience for people that will be living in Ilubirin. So we don’t call Ilubirin an estate, we’re calling it a city development, because it’s way bigger, it’s way more than just an estate, it’s an entire city, literally, maybe just not on the size scope of what a city should then be, but it is inclusive of all that.”

The total number of apartments is 190, in nine blocks, they are spread across nine blocks. 

“So we have about nine blocks that would be apartments. People who keyed in initially, we had to refund everybody because there were delays. So Ilubirin, yes, has been in the market for a bit, yes, the construction has been on for a bit, but the project has also gone through different phases, it has had to be modified to meet up with current realities, different issues that were experienced. I mean, we had a whole lot of delays at some point in time when we could not meet up with the timeline for delivery to clients who had invested.

“And it then became a management decision to say, instead of holding everybody down till those issues were resolved, I mean, they were already uncomfortable, they didn’t feel like the product was going to them, we said, let us keep our integrity and refund everybody so that we can exit till we can clear up all of those issues, one of which was the fact that the funding that was planned for, there was a stall with the funding because of the amount of work that had to be done. There was a whole lot of filling, there was a whole lot of modification to the buildings that had to be done. So all those things became a bit more than what was initially envisaged.

“So we had that challenge. We also had a bit of a challenge with the canal. So there’s a canal on that side that basically needs to be repurposed and redrawn backwards so that the water and the canal itself can be rechanneled.

“So that we also make sure that we don’t have a canal in through the property that people will be living in. You know how a canal can just be problematic. So we had to make sure that all of that was taken care of.

“And that’s where now we are ready to relaunch into the market. We don’t like to call it a relaunch, but because we’re now at a point where this block is completed, we can now go into the market and say yes, this block is completed. Now we can take subscribers, now we can take investors into this block and the subsequent blocks because we have a plan for how the different blocks will continue to be built up and finished.

On the cost of the apartments, if it was favorable to potential buyers, she said, “So favourable is relative, considering who it is that we are targeting. Because we’re affordable luxury, so we are quite affordable.”

For flexible payment, the marketing manager said, “We’ve also partnered with a mortgage bank to help with financing, because we do understand that Nigerians may not be able to put all the money down at once.

“We want to still be able to give people that opportunity to be able to spread their payments. So in as much as this building is standing, the developer’s payment timeline is quite short, which is six months for this particular building. But we’ve gotten a mortgage bank who is also working with us to say that people who want to take it can pay over two years.

“So we have a financing option that allows for people to pay over two years. We also have the mortgage bank come and offer people who may want to also buy into this space to pay for up to 10 years with, I mean, very interesting and competitive rates. Most of the problems we have with mortgage banks in Nigeria, especially when it comes to financing, is forgetfulness.”