@Kaiganjo.....i have no clue what you are talking about but i appreciate the facts as this is Wazua and its all about sharing.thanks a lot!!

@ Kaigangio. Did you say that the parking was meant for 375 vehicles and 500 vehicles park in that place????

Nakumatt shoppers has so far taken up most of the parkings here. With more floors and tenants, Nakumatt will lose big as it will no longer be attractive to shop at a place you can hardly get parking.

@Kaigangio, Thank for your detailed info though I have no idea what piles are

@ kihangeri...what you are telling us is not true...how long did you work there anyway?

A little insight...

The contract for NSSF Office block between Mokhta Daddah and Monrovia Street as it was originaly known was commissioned to Mruttu Salmann Associates (architects), Abdul Mullick Associates (Structural Civil engineers), Tana & Associates (Quantity Surveyors) and Kisa & Partners Cons. Engineers (Services Engineers). The architectural concept of the building depicted a maasai holding two shields...

This was commissioned together at the same time with the NSSF Embakasi housing, NSSF Mountain View Housing and little known NSSF Karen Housing (White elephant) way back in 1994 when Muindi was the Managing Trustee and NSSF was liquid.

The construction contract for the Office block was awarded in 1997 to one Mavji Construction limited at a tender sum of kshs 3.8 Billion if i remember well...The building consisted of 4 basements parking to accommodate 375 vehicles, Ground floor (nowadays they park more than 500), mezzanine 1 & 2, 31 typical office floors, Lift machines floor, communication masts floor and heliport....

The excavations at some point had to be precisionally controlled because it started generating some problems to the nearby buildings, (read nginyo towers and others) which started developing cracks...

At a depth of 18m below the surface another big challenge arose...The geological tests carried out in the entire area covered by the block showed that the rock here could not carry the weight of the building...besides that, there was evidence of an underground stream directly below which explained why the contractor spent so much time and big pumps pumping out the water pooling from underground and spreading in the huge pit. So what to do...The building raft was redesigned and piles (underground columns) were introduced...

To stabilise the base it took 600 piles distributed over the area ranging in diameter sizes 900mm on the tower side and 600mm in the mid sections and 300mm towards the monrovia road side. Again the raft depths were uneven. The depth of raft on the tower side was a whooping 3.8m!!!...and it varied from various random section to a minimum depth of 1.8m near the monrovia road side...The variation attributed to piles introduction and raft changes was about kshs 0.5 billion (about 12% of the tender sum)...

The concrete pouring for the raft was sub-contracted to Mugoya which was the only construction company that could manage the concrete pours of such magnitude...They had a large fleet of concrete mixer/pumps trucks...About 20,000 cubic metre of concrete went into the raft!!!

At around 1999 NSSF was almost going bankrupt having awarded mega projects and making huge payments...NSSF embakasi housing (kshs 6 billion), NSSF Office Block (kshs 3.8 billion), NSSF Mountain view (kshs kshs 900 million), NSSF Karen housing (Not sure but nearly kshs 2 billion) these figures being contract awarded tender sums....of course 2 years later the variations were huge...Note also the contracts were awarded during an election period and lots of money was needed for the campaign...the cash cow...NSSF!!

The project had to be scaled down and the construction was to reach water tanks floor level...At this level it was projected that the project would cost about kshs 2.8 Billion based on the tendered rates and other unmeasured and concealed works...

The traffic flow will not be any different than it is now because the available parking space in the basement will be optimumly utilised just as it is happening now...Although the tower will be constructed there will be no corresponding increase in parking space...

In the early stages fo development, the civil engineers persuaded the Nairobi City Council to make monrovia and mokhta daddah street single lanes which they did...but NCC made a very stupid mistake...introducing side parkings along these roads...This is why most of the times there is traffic jams along koinange street even when the university way is clear!!

@kaiganjo you must be a civil engineer

yep, good stuff