Monthly Blog- March 2024

James Charnaud

Abidjan continues to impress me, the level of infrastructure and improvements to the city over the last 10 years is really encouraging. We are here on several projects – a lease renewal, advising on a new headquarter development and an African portfolio optimisation, valuing a logistics park and finishing off the acquisition of a new embassy.

You can sense the positive vibe from the recent hosting (and winning) of the African Cup of Nations by Cote D’Ivoire. Flags are still on the cars and I have never seen so many replica football shirts.

The office market has heated up, prior to 2020 prime rents were always easy to quote “XOF 10,000 per sqm per month”. Then this ceiling was broken and today new or newly refurbished space is achieving XOF17,500 – 20,000 per sqm per month. The Groupe Duval Office Building is now starting to charge for car parking which has traditionally been included in the rental rate in Abidjan. Other landlords have heard of this and are now openly quoting it to us in our negotiations.

The industrial / logistics development has traditionally been around parts of Macory, the Port and Yopougon. Now, new areas are emerging. These are driven by a lack of decent sized units and road improvements. We were involved in a valuation around PK24. A couple of years ago there was some development but we were mainly offered land for sale which was being bought up by speculators. Now you can see the construction of the Y4 Ring Road is in progress and industrial units are being constructed and land purchased by occupiers. Drive off the main Auto Route Du Nord and you will be amazed at how many large plots have been sold to corporations who are looking to build or are building factories.  The price of land has doubled in the last 18 months and the early speculators are reaping the benefits. Rental rates for quality warehouse units are in the €6.75 per sqm per month level with some developers now quoting rates above €7.00 per sqm per month for future delivery.