The Abuja National Mall – Salvaged at last

This area is to accommodate the National Mall according to the Abuja Master Plan. Specifications and requirements for its development are explained in the Central Area Urban Design of Abuja, a document produced by Kenzo Tange and Urtec Associates.As a very important component of the Abuja Master Plan, the development of the National Mall with […]

This area is to accommodate the National Mall according to the Abuja Master Plan. Specifications and requirements for its development are explained in the Central Area Urban Design of Abuja, a document produced by Kenzo Tange and Urtec Associates.
As a very important component of the Abuja Master Plan, the development of the National Mall with up to 20 floor buildings, shall now serve as a catalyzing element for the subsequent developments of other undeveloped commercial and recreational plots in the whole of the Central Area District. Due to its strategic location and importance in the concept of the Abuja development, there must be unrestricted compliance with the standard and magnitude of the proposal according to the Master Plan.
The Master Plan proposal is that, National Mall shall be composed of two parts. The first is in a valley whose natural terrain is used effectively as terraced sunken garden. These terraced decks include many amenity facilities such as restaurants, coffee shops, small cinema, disco clubs, bars, night clubs, boutiques and an amphitheater, so as to enliven the ministry area after office hours. These facilities can also be connected to the bus stations and the future subway stations by means of pedestrian underpasses which are linked to the Ministries Garden.
The second part is the States Plaza Area, which consists of State gardens including small amenity facilities such as coffee shops kiosks etc. The area is to be well landscaped using the natural topographical features. Subway stations will be introduced here in the sunken garden so as to help increase the activity around it at any time of the day.
The routes B-8 and B-10 bordering the National Mall are to planned and landscaped with such dignity as to reflect their important ceremonial functions. In order to give the roads befitting dignity it is considered undesirable to allow the roads to follow the natural topography. They are therefore made to pass over the valley on bridges which are to be kept at the same uniform slope from the National Square to the Roads N-11 and S-11. From the road to N-12 are proposed symmetrical ramps using topographical conditions. The spaces below the bridges can be used for parking and for commercial purposes along the part which faces the National Mall.
It could be recalled that these B-8 and B-10 are the original ceremonial corridor of the Abuja master planned referred to as the down town boulevard. Initially the proposal was for them to be flanked with low rise development blocks. However, in the event of upgrading the boulevard to high rise developments, the supporting facilities must also be upgraded. Adequate calculations must be made in order to provide adequate support facilities of parking, width of the adjoining roads and the metro services.
We wish to advise the authority, that adequate precautionary measures must be taken in order to prevent the midway abandonment of this project. Previous attempts met with failure, perhaps due to politics, or lack of adequate preparations. However we were now informed by the Coordinator of the Abuja Infrastructure Investment Company in one of his recent interviews that as part of the safeguards, already a financial commitment of up to N3 Billion for the preliminary technical activities has been expended by the developer Chikason Group. Furthermore, in order to confirm the financial capability of the developer, the agreement as signed includes a down payment of 15 percent of the total project cost.
We wish to commend the Authority for its diligence in the strict compliance with the Abuja Master Plan as enshrined in the Kenzo Tange document. Accordingly, the implementation should also be strictly monitored. Also it must be noted that provision of infrastructure like the metro should precede the various structural developments. This is to prevent minor and major destructions that could arise from possible excavations and other construction works when the super structures precede these types of edifices. We should prevent the recurrence of the existing situation on the ONEX.