Rs. 7 b middle income housing project in Borella

• Chinese Company Yanjian wins design and tender for project offering 100% financing option
• Facility comprises 400 units under three categories in 30-storeyed structure
• UDA to call for applications to buy units within three months of project’s commencement 

By Chathuri Dissanayake

The second housing project in Colombo targeting middle class professionals with an investment of over Rs. 7 billion is set to kick off in December. 

Cabinet has already granted approval to award the construction job for the project costing Rs. 7.799 billion to Yanjian Group Company Ltd, which earlier constructed the Nelum Pokuna theatre.



Only two bidders, Yanjian Group Company and Maga Construction, qualified through the technical evaluation, a top official of the Urban Development Authority told Daily FT.

“The project is a design and build job. So 25% of the points were awarded for the design and 75% were awarded to the financial proposal. In the Yanjian proposal, they had offered a 100% financing solution where the Government has to pay the total only at the end of the project. We don’t need to pay anything before that. So they got higher marks as they had 100% in the financial proposal,” said UDA Director General Sumeda Ratnayake.

The housing complex located at Elliot Place has 400 units in a 30-storeyed structure with the ground floor dedicated to commercial purposes, and is scheduled for completion in 2020. The facility has three different housing units - Type 1 with a floor area of 850 m2 includes two bedrooms and a bathroom, Type 2 with floor area of 1,050 m2 has three bedrooms and two bathrooms, while Type 3 has three bedrooms, two bathrooms and an additional service room. 

The first housing project initiated by Megapolis with 600 units targeting young professionals is now 40% complete.  All units in the facility are already sold out, Ratnayake said. UDA has received over 1,500 applications from professionals in both the private sector and Government sector to buy one of the 600 units. The majority of the units have been bought by members of the medical profession it was learnt.

“We are selling at a lower cost than the market rates at the moment.  A unit with three bedrooms was sold at Rs. 12.1 million while a unit with two bedrooms was given at Rs. 8.5 million. This is a lot lower than the apartment prices in the market right now,” he said. 

The pricing for the new facility is likely to be higher due to the prime location and additional facilities included in the building.

Similarly, units in the new facility will also be priced low. Applications to buy a unit will be called by way of public advertisement three months after commencing construction work, he said.

“We will be asking the applicants to furnish the details of their occupation and salary slips to verify their professions,” Ratnayake said while explaining the selection process.

“We are doing the screening process to ensure that no middlemen buy the units for resale later,” he explained.