Cairo riverfront project poised for revamp

A developer spearheading a $3-4 billion project to revamp Cairo's slum-filled downtown riverfront as an upscale commercial and leisure district will seek a strategic partner next year, the head of the firm said.

The project is targeting 300,000 square metres of prime waterfront as part of a government plan to modernise a decaying but historic downtown by 2050 that could bring in more tourist revenue but would also displace thousands of Cairo's poor.

"We plan to call for competitive bidding for strategic partners ... around early April to August 2010," said Sherif Hafez, Chief Executive Officer of Maspero for Urban Development.

Hafez told Reuters he did not anticipate the Dubai debt crisis would deter investors from the project, which will include a landmark highrise building, commercial and residential areas, hotels and rare public green space.

Analysts said they believed Egypt, which has emerged from the world financial crisis relatively unscathed, would be little affected by Dubai. Fund managers said last week money could even move out of Dubai and into safer regional havens like Egypt.

"I am not perturbed by what happened; we had companies who were interested before the Dubai crisis, including Emaar, and now we have interest coming from American and Saudi companies," Hafez said.

The downtown waterfront is already home to existing developments on 100,000 square metres of land, including a luxury hotel and government offices such as the foreign ministry headquarters. Those buildings will all stay.

A fifth of Egypt's 77 million population lives deep in poverty on less than $1 a day, with many packed in Cairo slums where the population density is 100,000 people per square mile.

Maspero has $28 million paid-in capital, which Hafez said would reach $280m by the summer through public funding. The strategic partner would finance most of the project. The overall Maspero plan would cost about $3-4BN, he said.

Private investment in Egyptian real estate boomed in the middle of the decade as economic growth picked up, and the state sold land around the capital to developers.

Luxury developments sprouted in newly built suburbs on reclaimed desert land on the outskirts of Cairo. Gulf-based builders, flush from booms at home, joined the line up.

In one downtown area, Egypt's Beltone Financial is buying buildings as part of efforts to revitalise the much-neglected district, home to the stock exchange and many banks.

Likewise, Hafez said he had bought half the 200,000 square metres of private and state land he needs for his firm's waterfront project, and was months away from acquiring the rest.

Hafez declined to say how much he had paid for the land or what compensation would be given to any displaced residents but promised assistance to settle them in Cairo satellite cities.

"We have the government's support in efforts to modernise Cairo and remove shantytowns, buying land from owners and compensating their residents who have to move," Hafez said.