THE main drivers behind the Bar Beach Waterfront and Tourism Gateway, planned for Victoria Island off Lagos, hope to start construction of the complex in March next year.
Frans Kapp, a director of Stellenbosch-based engineering consultancy Entech, said it would take 30 months to complete the first phase of the development, which should be ready by August 2006.
The first phase includes a main activities centre, which will house a leisure, retail, office and hotel component.
The entire project will take about 10 years to complete. It covers 5km of coastline.
Business Day reported two years ago that the success of Cape Town's Victoria & Alfred Waterfront had opened the way for the export of South African engineering expertise to the rest of the African continent, and beyond.
At the time it was reported that a consortium led by Entech had won a 1,08m tender for the rehabilitation and development of the Bar Beach area of Victoria Island .
Plans, now pending approval of the Lagos state government, include the rehabilitation of the Bar Beach, which has been badly eroded, and a leisure, tourist, residential and commercial precinct based on the Victoria & Alfred model.
The Victoria & Alfred Waterfront was one of the team of consultants appointed by the Lagos state government to conduct a feasibility study for the project.
Piet van Zyl, executive manager of international projects for the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, said that investigation followed a technical study by the Environmentek division of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research and Entech into an erosion problem on Victoria Island .
Large-scale coastline retreat and beach erosion along Victoria Island's Bar Beach are a direct result of the construction of the Lagos harbour moles, or channels, in the early 1900s.
Although the moles provide safe navigation , they act as a barrier for the natural west-to-east littoral transport of sediment and limit sand supply to such an extent to the eastern side that drastic beach erosion occurs.
"Our study and report was handed to the Lagos state government 18 months ago. The report's findings were that it was feasible to look at a waterfront project which could also address the beach erosion problem," Van Zyl said.
Kapp said the plan was to turn a "liability into an asset". The entire project would end up costing about 400m, he said.
Entech hoped to have the funding structure in place for the first phase by the end of February next year.
"We're hoping to get sufficient South African funding to have a majority South African shareholding in the project."
Kapp said many of SA's large retailers were interested in the project, as well as private interests in SA and Nigeria. Investors from the US, Europe and the east are also interested in the project. To this end Entech has established a development company in Nigeria called Endev Nigeria.
The company has a 50% South African interest through Entech and a 50% Nigerian interest through EUTA International of Nigeria and Hamlet Investments of London.
