In the quiet corner of Oniru, an emerging upscale enclave substantially bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, by what is now called Upper Victoria Island in Lagos, is the Landmark Village, a new island city being developed and promoted by Landmark Group—an ambitious real estate investment firm.
Unless one visits this village, the impression one gets is that the village is just another place where high profile events are regularly held in an imposing building . There is more to the village than meets the eye, especially looking from the undulating road network that leads to the village.
“Landmark Village is a one-stop shop live, work and play destination. The main theme of this development is business, leisure and lifestyle where you can come, conduct your business, and experience leisure and lifestyle,” Paul Onwuanibe, Landmark Group CEO, explained to BusinessDay in an interview last week.
To resonate with this theme,, the products and services on offer include residences, hotel, offices, and retail with a new retail boulevard. There are shops; a a department store, a family entertainment centre with an arcade which crosses over all demographics starting from the age of four to 100 who can find his way to the village.
Besides the popular Landmark Event Centre where events such as weddings, exhibitions, conferences, corporate affairs, parties and events like basket ball, boxing competitions are held, the village also has a five-screen cinema which is the first 4D screens that will be in operation in one of Africa’s coastlines to be managed by film-house.
Inside the village offering these products and services are such organizations as KFC, Chamberland, Rolex and an ice-ream factory. Hardrock and Shiroh are part of the old names in the village.
“We have developed our lifestyle and leisure elements to a great extent,” Onwuanibe disclosed, and unknown to many, an ocean-front beach has been developed in the village with restaurants, bush bars, children’s playground, love garden, mini-golf, etc.
“Usually, 1000-2000 people come to this place every weekend to have fun. It is a family affair where fathers, mothers, children and their grannies come to spend upwards of six hours and go home. People also come to play football on the football pitch here.
“It is always a good entertainment and the tournament is watched by over 150 people. Nigerians from outside the country also come to have fun and leave here quite delighted and wondering that such a place exists in Nigeria”, he noted.
The Landmark Village enjoys considerable traffic especially at weekends and this is because “we are one-stop shop; when you come here, you don’t have to go anywhere else for anything until you leave the village or the country as a whole. We have shops, a medical centre, leisure and sports centre, a spare, a gym, bar, offices, a hotel, an event centre, a swimming pool, serviced offices, a beach, a cycling area, a boating area. From the live, work and play perspective, there is vitually everything here”, he assured.
Argauably, Landmark Village is Africa’s number one destination in the West African coast in terms of business, leisure and lifestyle. Till date, there is nothing like that elsewhere in West Africa.
But whereas the use of the beach is more or less free except for registration to come in, if a fun-seeker wants to watch movies, it will cost him N1,500 for two hours. If he eats a burger, depending on where he wants to eat it, it will cost him between N500 and N6,000; if he is staying in a hotel there, it costs N30,000 for a room and N60,000 for a bigger room.
Onwuanibe hopes and prayers that more of what they have done come on stream within Lagos and other cities of the country. “We should not be talking about competition now but how to increase service offering and make sure it is accessible and affordable to everybody including students, workers, executives and other age and income groups”, he said.
CHUKA UROKO
