06 May 2018

The construction of what will be the tallest building in Francistown cannot be missed in the skyline of the country’s second city.

The steel structures of the building can be seen from the fly-over into the populated Francistown bus and taxi rank.

From its ground breaking construction to now, it has always caught people’s attention with many wondering what it was because all they could see on its first few months of construction were towering steel girders with not a single brick in site.

In an interview the owner of the building, who is also the director of Olympus Properties, Mr Austin Mbakile said the building would be called Ngilichi Towers.

It is situated between two other Olympus Properties buildings, one housing the Department of Lands and the other housing the Land Tribunal offices.

When complete, Mr Mbakile said the towers would be the tallest building in Francistown at 35 metres high, with eight storeys.

The tallest known building before it in Francistown, he said, had been only five storeys high and that his building had three more storeys to it to make it the tallest building in the second city.

“When I dreamt this building, I set out to set a standard for other investors to emulate or beat my building’s record. It was not a competition per-se, but I want to inspire more people that have been blessed in life to invest in the city of Francistown,” Mr Mbakile said.

The construction of Ngilichi Towers began in May 2017.

The construction site is manned by 75 Batswana and four Chinese expatriates.

“At this stage of construction, this building has already gobbled up P30 million and I estimate that it will cost me between P40 million but not more than P50 million,” Mr Mbakile said.
 The building’s ground floor, he noted, was 2 300 square metres while the first, second and third floors were 1 800 square metres each while the fourth, fifth and sixth floors were just 900 square metres each.

He noted that it took the whole building to 10 600 square metres with a total space of just 8 000 square metres.

The installation of steel girders, he said, was expected to have been installed by May and the job, which has been supervised by four Chinese expatriates, has seen some delays.

He said the Chinese hired to ensure the smooth flow of all the building’s steel structure construction suffered a setback with many of them running out of work permits, but that they had taught some locals to work around steel girders.

“My plans are for Ngilichi Towers to be complete by September this year, but I foresee a delay with the construction of car parking area, which will be at the back of the building. Big buildings like this are required to have sufficient parking area by the council. We will start building that parking area soon and will complete it in three months’ time from the day we construct it,” he said.

Mr Mbakile said he had initially wanted to accommodate commercial shops on the ground floor, but later changed the plan when he received a number of tenants who wanted offices. He said his target was government and private tenants.

The budding property entrepreneur and his company are not new to the property business in the city.

He owns a luxurious gated estate called Ngilichi Village on the outskirts of Pelotelele ward. Ends