WestProp unveils US$300m mixed-use estate in urban renewal push push

VICTORIA Falls Stock Exchange-listed WestProp Holdings Limited yesterday began the development of the US$300 million Hills Luxury Golf Estate as its urban renewal push intensifies.

Apart from the construction of the world class golf course, the development will see the construction of villas, apartments, townhouses, country club, hotel, tennis and swimming academy and a shopping mall.

The golf course will be modelled after an 18-hole golf course used in the PGA Tour.

"Today's launch, which will continue with the groundbreaking, marks the beginning of the transformation of the rebranded Hills Luxury Estate, formerly known as Warren Hills Golf Club, into a mixed live, work, shop, and play luxury lifestyle estate," WestProp CEO Ken Sharpe said yesterday. "This is part of our commitment to urban renewal programs supported by the Second Republic. This project generates a value of more than $300 million. We are convinced that by the time it is completed, the value of our investment in this project will have increased significantly."

He stated that the initiative would contribute 70 million bricks toward their goal of one billion bricks by 2050. "This project that we are starting today is a legacy project. It marks numerous firsts for Sub-Saharan Africa and Zimbabwe. "I believe that this project will forever change perceptions of Harare and Zimbabwe," Sharpe said. "We are on a quest to have one billion bricks in the ground by 2050 across all of our projects, which include Pokugara Residential Estate, Millennium Heights, Pomona City, and the Hills Golf Estate. This project will utilize an estimated 70 million bricks. So, this project alone will treble our bricks, bringing us to over 150 million, achieving over 15% of the target."

WestProp brought in famous golf course designer Peter Matkovich and leading architect Joan Balagué Capdet for the project. "It is with great pleasure that I greet Joan Balagué Capdet. Yesterday, he flew all the way from Barcelona, Spain. He is the man who created the stunning estate that we are revealing today. He came up with a concept strategy. "His first walk on this land was about two years ago," Sharpe stated. "He was active and essential in developing the town plan to incorporate this mixed-use development into a smart city, and we now have magnificent pictures of what is being designed on the walls around you. "He designed the homes."

Sharpe stated that Matkovich will build an 18-hole world championship golf course. "Peter came to see me a few years ago, he said to me, I not only designed the best golf courses in Africa and have won the most awards for the best golf courses, but I am also a man of the soil of Zimbabwe," Sharpe told reporters. "He was born in Zimbabwe and he wanted to come back to Zimbabwe and leave his legacy, his mark in his later years on the best course that he has designed." Aside from this development, WestProp's other continuing projects include Millennium Heights, Pokugara Residential Estate, Pomona City (ongoing), The Mall of Zimbabwe, and Millennium Heights Office Park.