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Tag: Kwara Hotel

  • Hundreds engaged, govt excited as construction work advances at Kwara Hotel

    Hundreds engaged, govt excited as construction work advances at Kwara Hotel

    Kwara Commissioner for Business, Innovation and Technology (BIT) Damilola Yusuf-Adelodun has conducted a facility tour of the Kwara Hotel, a hospitality industry undergoing massive remodeling to meet international standards.

    Between 150 and 350 people, mostly Kwarans, are fully engaged in the construction works which have seen the hotel undergo unprecedented facility upgrades and expansions.

    Yusuf-Adelodun, who led reporters round the facility in Ilorin, said work has exceeded 25 per cent target that the Ministry gave the contractor for this particular period, commending Craneburg Construction Company for a well done job.

    “The work done so far has actually exceeded our initial timeline. From the Ministry’s assessment, this work has already reached 25 per cent completion. Initially, it was supposed to be at 20 per cent at this time. So the contractor is moving fast, and they are doing their work efficiently,” she said.

    “In the next few months, we hope it will move faster. So we are within the timeline.

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    “The decision to remodel Kwara Hotel is because it is a real legacy of Kwarans. Anybody who lives here knows the significance of Kwara Hotel, and His Excellency made a wise decision in turning it around in a manner never seen before.

    “This is a completely new facility in terms of what is going in there. You can see the quality yourself. From what you can see, there is a central cooling system for each of the units. There is an automated fire system, an automated DMS system, and you can also see a solar component to power the hotel.

    “This means that if there is no light from the national grid or the generators are not working (because we have more than three generators that will service this hotel), you will still be able to have light and maintain the operations of the hotel without any interruption.”

    The Commissioner commended Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq for thinking it wise to refurbish the hotel, which she noted is of high importance to the state.

    The Ministry is committed to ensuring that the hotel renders great services to be able to meet international standards, she said.

    Project Manager, Craneburg Construction Company, Mohammed Yamout, for his part, said their firm is reputed for international standards and will not deliver anything short of the required standards in the execution of the project.

    Mohammed said the company is working round the clock to deliver their work within the stipulated period, adding that what is being done is as good as delivering a completely new hotel fitted with the best accessories.

    “Whether in the demolition or the rebuilding, everything we do is of international standard. We ensure a good high quality in the execution of mechanical, electrical, and the cooling system, among other features and designs. Many of the fixtures were never there before.

    “Our contract has 24 months for delivery, starting from January 2024. We are doing our best and in line with the agreement. It is our promise to deliver it within the shortest time possible.”

    The Commissioner similarly conducted journalists round the Innovation Hub, which she said seeks to promote ICT startups technology skills among the youth as envisioned by Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq.

    The ICT Innovation Hub is at the completion stage, she said, adding that it should be ready by the fourth quarter of the year.

    “Already, we have a partnership with IHS Tower. As you can see from the top, the project is taking shape as envisioned by His Excellency,” she said.

    “It is a one-of-its-kind facility in the country. It can operate totally off-grid because of the solar system embedded into it.

    “The project will attract start-up and technological companies into the state. We look forward to having companies like IHS Towers, Google, and others to be here. This will promote ease of doing business and create job opportunities for more than 10,000 young people.”

  • EXPLAINER: Despite govt’s drive for a greater Kwara Hotel, prudence a consideration

    EXPLAINER: Despite govt’s drive for a greater Kwara Hotel, prudence a consideration

    Dr. Segun Ogunsola

    Kwara State Government is impressed by the lively, yet diverse debates on the iconic and one-of-its kind Kwara Hotel, our heritage. 

    At different times, in line with the principle of participatory democracy, public officials have offered useful explanations on the comprehensive remodeling and reconstruction works the government is embarking upon — along with assurances that the returns will be more than worth the investments because of the potentials of the historic facility. 

    At N50,000 per room, for example, Kwara Hotel will recoup its investment in less than 10 years with N3.15bn annual income. This excludes incomes from conferencing and other facilities in it. An argument may then be made that not all of its rooms will always be occupied every day. Yes. But a room in the choice hotel will also not remain N50,000 for the next 10 years. 

    Despite all previous explanations, the government can’t be tired of offering as much information as possible to keep the people well informed.

    First, as of today, the government has a contract for the Kwara Hotel’s project only with Craneburg Constructions. No other firm has any contract with the government on Kwara Hotel. We ask the public to disregard any claim to the contrary. 

    Second, Kwara Hotel is a huge facility and a one-of-its kind in central Nigeria outside of the capital city Abuja. Established in 1975 and last given a major renovation over 20 years ago, Kwara Hotel had become decrepit. 

    From 2019, just about 30 of its 173-key rooms were operational. Its ancillary facilities had become old-fashioned and worn-out. The public may note that previous administrations made attempts to fix the hotel. These attempts fell through. Yet, the government has a duty to the people and posterity to not just turn it around but to do it well and in a way that places Kwara Hotel ahead of others and maximizes its full potentials in central Nigeria. 

    Suggestions that N3bn could have fixed the hotel to the standard are borne out of limited understanding of the build industry and trends of inflation. For those who believe that a BOQ costed at N3bn exists, they need to ask when this BOQ was prepared, by who, and for what scope of work. If the BOQ dated to 2021, for instance, then it couldn’t have envisaged an outright reconstruction or replacement of everything in Kwara Hotel except the skeleton. Today, unlike in 2021, Kwara Hotel is a complete empty shell of block work. 

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    And even if the BOQ touted by a certain firm contains the same scope of work as the one being used by Craneburg, it could hardly be a determinant of cost unless both sides are using the same materials. Where firm A goes for tiles priced at N3000 per square meter and firm B uses marble flooring worth N80,000 per square metre, their price and standard cannot be the same even if the size of their work is the same. The difference is in the quality. This puts a lie to claims that a job that contractor A costed at N1m cannot go for as high as N20m. 

    The government understands that cost is a crucial factor in any project; however, the quality, scale, complexity of this project, as well as the inflationary trend reasonably explain the N17.8bn price tag. See it this way: the Mohammed Lawal administration last did a major renovation of the hotel at around N2bn circa 2002. All indices considered, the N2bn of 2002 is worth approximately N23.7bn in today’s economy, considering the fact that the US dollar exchanged for just N109 as at then and it exchanges for N1,400 now. 

    The government, clearly, has done several value engineering to reduce the price to the minimum possible without jeopardising the material and finishing quality.

    The size of Kwara Hotel is significant, with a total built-up area of approximately                                         16,592 square metres — comprising the main building with Wing A and Wing B, composed of a ground floor and 5 upper floors, as follows:

    179 rooms (173 keys); banquet halls; reception lounge (area: 536m2); restaurant (area: 235m2); deluxe club and lounge (area: 222m2); and coffee lounge bar (area: 131m2).

    That also includes the ancillary building with areas of 1,590m2; chalets 5, 6, 7, and 8 (area: 294m2); shops /Bureau de Change (area: 312m2); botanical garden (area: 3,000m2). Other landmarks include the swimming pools with the related toilets and change rooms as well as its pump rooms and related mechanical works; squash court, pool deck pavilion, basketball, lawn tennis and badminton courts; gate house (area: 35m2); water treatment plant building (area: 215m2); covered staff car park; driveways, parking, drainages, kerbs and landscaping; approach fence, perimeter fences, pool fence and covered walkways. The job also entails external mechanical and electrical works, including a solar system that gives it 24-hour electricity supply. What about some vital components such as heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, lifts, curtain walling, sanitary wares, and Building Management System to smartly run the electric and mechanical components of the hotel post construction?

    This scale and complexity require a considerable amount of resources and materials for construction and finishing work, while high-quality materials are specified to meet the project’s specific requirements and ensure longevity. These materials come at a premium price, but they are worth the investment to deliver a premium, long-lasting product. 

    The recent fluctuation of the exchange rate has also contributed to the cost. Add this to the fact that the contractors are deploying an assortment of experienced local and expatriate engineers and staff to deliver the project’s proper finish to the highest attainable standard. These professionals bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the project, ensuring that the final product meets the highest possible standards. 

    Let us have a conversation on the price. The estimated cost for constructing a high-standard luxury hotel is approximately 2,800,000 Naira per square meter. 

    However, remodelling and reconstruction or rehabilitation may have lower costs, ranging between 1,400,000 Naira/m² and 2,000,000 Naira/m², depending on specifications and the firms. 

    At the time of consummating the Craneburg contract, the cost per built-up area for the hotel was 1,074,769.09 Naira/m². However, due to currency fluctuations, the current equivalent is approximately N1,354,485.47 Naira/m² if the same contract were to be signed today.

    This is the industry standard among graded construction firms for moderate luxury hotels and apartments — and it could be higher. 

    Kwarans are assured that the government is not just fixing this iconic facility for the fun of it; the idea is to keep it many miles ahead of any other hotels in the state.

    • Ogunsola, PhD in architecture, is Commissioner for Housing and Urban Development, Kwara State

  • Kwara Hotel: Another moment of Seward’s folly

    Kwara Hotel: Another moment of Seward’s folly

    In 1867, a former US Secretary of State William Seward committed $7.2m of taxpayers’ money to seal a deal that bought Alaska from Russia, triggering a flurry of reactions that culminated in the media historically dubbing the development ‘Seward’s folly’ and calling it an outright waste of public resources.

    Poor Seward would become a hero a few years after. In 1869, US netted a huge gold deposit in Alaska. A few years later, Alaska yielded a humongous oil find for the United States, making the $7.2m totally inconsequential. That speaks to vision — or luck?

    Closer home, and more consequential for Kwara, a certain Sheikh Rashid Ibn Saeed el-Makhtoum laid the foundation for the greatness and beauty called Dubai. At the height of his investments in the desert city, he was repeatedly called out and derided in unprintable terms. People wondered if he had gone nut. “If you build it, they will come” was a quote erroneously attributed to him, even though the often wrongly quoted words fit perfectly into the dream that is now Dubai. el-Makhtoum built and also followed it up — thanks to his equally visionary successors who carried on his dreams to the admiration of the rest of the world.

    Enter Kwara Hotel. Over the past few days, the iconic facility has grabbed news headlines as the state government announced a bold attempt to remodel and rebuild the 172-room Kwara hotel in the most comprehensive way ever since it was built in 1975 by the Brig-Gen David Bamigboye regime.

    The step, as with all major government decisions, has split the commentariats down the middle. Outside of those who agree entirely with the government on account of their own belief that the administration is patriotic enough to make the right decision, three other schools have emerged: those who want it done, but are skeptical about the cost vis-a-vis the return on investment; those who feel Kwara does not need such a facility and the money should instead be spread on monthly salaries and allowances of workers or some other things; and those who feel the government should rebuild it but should give the job to another firm, Crystal Group of Companies, which they said had committed to fix the hotel for N3bn under a concessioning agreement that allows it to run the facility for some 15 years. To the latter, the government erred as two contracts now exist on the same project.

    The differing opinions, a core pillar of democracy, go to show how much people follow government’s activities and programmes. It is welcome. But the argument about the concessioning is mostly incorrect and partisan. There are no two contracts on the project. While the state executive council did indeed approve a concessioning to Crystal, the approval was glaringly conditional upon the House of Assembly backing it. No legislative approval was communicated for the concession; hence, no contract was sealed. This is confirmed by the June 2, 2022 document of Harmony Holdings sent to the Crystal in the wake of the conditional approval by the council.

    Besides, the Crystal’s N3bn arrangement was never a wholesale remodelling and renovation of the Kwara Hotel. It was a piecemeal, wing-by-wing, or incremental renovation deal, which then allows Crystal to also manage it for 15 years. The comparison of a piecemeal renovation with complete remodelling, upgrades, and reconstruction that replaces everything in the hotel, except the carcass, is far-fetched. No basis for it.

    Next is the argument about due process and transparency. This argument — apologies to lawyers — is deemed ‘abandoned’ as it was not supported by any facts. Government twice advertised the job with all the requirements: first on August 18, 2023; and, again, on October 18, 2023, both in the printed versions of Nigerian Tribune and the Herald newspapers. Three firms applied and went through a competitive process, and one, Craneburg, was picked based on its capacity to fund and execute the huge project. Crystal did not apply. Neither did the Kwara PDP and its allies, who bellyache about which firm got the job. The government has a job to do, and it is its responsibility to ensure that only a firm deemed competent and financially viable is picked. In this job, the contractor brings the money — to be repaid in a structured way over a period of time. This saves everyone the burden of slow job delivery or perennial demand for variation where government directly funds a project.

    Why didn’t this one go through the House like the botched process involving Crystal? That is because no concession is involved. All the contractor does is to rebuild and furnish Kwara Hotel to required five-star specifications and hand it over to the state for further decisions on its management.

    With an increasingly busy airport and major tourism sites and potentials, a state as strategically positioned as Kwara should not be without first-class hospitality facilities. Having none stunts its socioeconomic growth and limits its potentials to host not just important events but to also harvest the opportunities that come with them.

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    The Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF) 2023 attracted at least 35,000 delegates and 1,600 exhibitors from across 75 countries, with $43bn worth of trade and investment deals. Cairo, the city in its fourth stage of development, hosted it at its International Exhibition Centre where the first edition of the IATF had also taken place in 2018. Try to imagine the reverberating effects of 35,000 valued guests entering a city for seven days: hotel reservations, visits to the Egyptian mummies, the Pyramids, camel rides, the cruise on the Nile, and hundreds of thousands of gigs along different value chains. That is what comes with such a crowd. But Egypt intentionally created the infrastructure to accommodate high-valued crowd in the first place, including Presidents, Governors, and Ministers, regardless of its own challenges. Success occurs when opportunity meets preparation, said Zig Ziglar.

    Tens of thousands of people visit Dubai’s Museum of the Future and other iconic facilities that make the city a tourist delight. That is billions of dollars in revenue. But Dubai did not start today. The dream that birthed one of the most visited places on earth started with a man a few decades ago. And he was criticised for wasting tax payers’ money. He was condemned for building castles in the air. Now we know better. el-Makhtoum is no more, but his dream has turned Dubai to the most visited place in the Middle East after Makkah, the birth place of Islam’s most celebrated Prophet.

    Who says that this peaceful and serene Kwara, or its prized capital city, cannot place itself in a pole position for conferencing and resort? Let’s give Governor AbdulRazaq a chance as he re-engineers the Kwara economy towards enterprise, agribusiness, innovation, tourism and hospitality with projects such as garment factory, international conference centre, innovation hub, visual arts centre, sugar film factory, tax house, Shea butter factory, industrial park, special agroprocessing zone, among others.

    The road to greatness is mostly paved with huge investments and great efforts — mostly scoffed at in the beginning, by opposition and those who may not see the vision from the start.

    One more thing: why can’t the government channel the resources elsewhere, some have quipped. Rebuilding the Kwara Hotel and doing other developmental projects aren’t mutually exclusive. It is not a zero-sum game. On the day the government announced the Kwara Hotel project, it announced several road projects across the state and the establishment of the Kwara State University Teaching Hospital. Development is not a destination; it is an unending process.

    N17bn ($14.4m), some critics said, appears a huge amount! But is it truly huge compared to the financial requirement of building a five-star hotel in an economy where a dollar equals N1,200? In 2018, five years ago when dollar was worth 200 naira, Transcorp Hotels budgeted N40bn ($32.8m) to upgrade its facilities. The Lagos Continental Hotel was built for a total sum of N99.6bn, or $81.1m. Recently, the Lagos Oriental Hotel was valued at N300bn ($250m). While the size and location of these facilities may vary, the point is that premium hospitality facilities like the soon-to-be-rebuilt Kwara Hotel never come cheap. Not here, not anywhere in the world. If you doubt this, check out how much went into building the Burj-al-Khalifa (N1.8trillion), Emirates Palace (N3.6tr), Wynn Palace (N5.04tr), or Abraj Al-Bait (N19.2tr). Yes, these are admittedly very exclusive facilities in choice corners of the world, but they have a long value chain extending to the poorest in their societies. Kwara Hotel, even if not exactly like the ones above, isn’t much different if we truly want it to stand out.

    • Ajakaye is Chief Press Secretary to the Governor