Afrigather When Fb deliberate to ascertain its first Nigeria workplace in 2018, Yaba was the plain selection. Yaba had turn into a focus for tech innovation, internet hosting startups like Andela and the accelerator CCHub. When Mark Zuckerberg visited Nigeria in 2015, Yaba was an important pitstop, and he praised the colourful tech neighborhood.
As Yaba’s ecosystem matured, its house constraints and ageing infrastructure grew to become extra obvious. Firms started looking for out options that supplied extra fashionable facilities and room for development.
Impressed by Silicon Valley’s transfer from crowded city areas to expansive campuses in Menlo Park and Mountain View, Lagos tech firms shifted their focus to Ikoyi, a complicated neighbourhood with bigger workplace areas and higher infrastructure.
Ikoyi has workplace buildings just like the 14-storey King’s Tower, Heritage Place, and Famfa Tower. These buildings, priced at $600 to $800 per sq. meter yearly, supply safety, parking, and environmental requirements.
In 2021, Meta moved its Nigerian workplace to King’s Tower. Different tech giants quickly adopted. Flutterwave and Microsoft joined Meta at King’s Tower, whereas Google moved to Heritage Place, and Amazon settled in Victoria Island. In August 2024, Fincra, a cost infrastructure supplier, opened its new headquarters in Ikoyi on the former residence of certainly one of Nigeria’s colonial directors Lord Lugard.
Ikoyi grew to become the best location for world firms to ascertain a foothold.
Why Ikoyi is the brand new selection location
The shift was inevitable, says Remi Dada, CEO of Spacefinish and Campus HQ, which designed workplaces for Andela, Flutterwave, and Meta.
“We started to see world firms working below a unique paradigm than the native tech ecosystem,” he instructed TechCabal. Buildings in Ikoyi have correct upkeep constructions, which is a precedence for world firms, and one factor that’s missing in buildings in locations like Yaba and Marina, which has a superb focus of high-rise buildings.
William Aimakhu, CEO of PWAN Perfection, an affiliate of PWAN Group, a industrial actual property supplier, emphasised the strategic worth of an Ikoyi handle: “An Ikoyi workplace isn’t simply an handle; it’s a strategic asset. The visibility alone can enhance purchasers’ curiosity (in an organization), a key issue within the aggressive enterprise atmosphere.”
World Class Experiences
Some firms, like BetKing – now KingMakers – and Canon, have created customized areas to suit their wants. BetKing needed a campus with leisure facilities, eating places, and studios, so Spacefinish designed a 5,000-square-meter complicated for them.
These multinationals additionally standardise workplace experiences throughout world places, making certain that workers in Lagos get pleasure from the identical high quality as these within the U.S. Spacefinish took six to 9 months every to design the workplaces for Meta, Flutterwave, and Google in Ikoyi’s King’s Tower and Heritage Place. Regardless of Meta decreasing its workplace house in June 2024, demand for premium buildings stays excessive, with an 80% occupancy price throughout Lagos and Abuja.
Tech firms aren’t the one ones transferring to Ikoyi. Finance and consulting firms are more and more drawn to Ikoyi’s premium areas. Verod Capital, an African enterprise capital agency works out of Heritage Place alongside oil and fuel firms.
Whereas Ikoyi’s premium workplace areas entice world giants, the excessive price of leasing—denominated in {dollars}—stays a problem for a lot of native companies. The volatility of the native forex additionally provides to the associated fee considerations locking out native startups and SMEs from these places.
Amazon’s latest setup at Quantity One – previously IMB Plaza – in Victoria Island exhibits that whereas Ikoyi is standard, areas like Victoria Island and Eko Atlantic are getting extra consideration for his or her adherence to world requirements. With new high-rise initiatives like Dangote Home underway, Ikoyi’s actual property market is predicted to develop considerably, including 100,000 sq. meters of premium workplace house for native and worldwide companies looking for premium workplace areas.
“Buyers are taking a look at macroeconomics. They’re wanting on the demand. They wish to make sure that they aren’t constructing buildings that won’t be occupied. So the market forces are additionally one other consideration for the kind of workplace panorama that we’ve,” Dada mentioned.
