Tenants start moving in Independence House Annex |19 May 2016

Since this week, tenants have been moving in a new building in the centre of Victoria, the Independence House Annex, which is squeezed between the Independence House and Stad Popiler.

Seen from Francis Rachel Street and other southern parts of town, the new building rises high above Stad Popiler. With its blue tinted front windows, the new six-storey building surely adds to the beauty of Victoria, the world’s smallest capital.

Sheryl Low-Meng,director for human resource management and administration in the Ministry of Land Use and Housing (MLUH) which owns the building, has explained that the annex was conceived so that Independence House could be a one stop hub for government services serving investors and investment.

The main building already hosts some of the ministry’s sections such as the Planning Authority, Land Registrar and the Lands Division. The Immigration Division was also based there.

The annex block where all space made available has already been rented out, will complete this hub with other tenants with the Maritime Boundary Project of the Blue Economy Department and the Seychelles Investment Bureau (SIB) taking the second floor.

The Ministry of Investment, Entrepreneurship Development and Business Innovation will be moving on the third floor, while the fourth and fifth floors will be occupied by the Ministry of Labour and Human Resource Development.

Planning Authority will be moving to the building’s first floor, while the ground floor will offer parking space for the two buildings.

The new building which covers around 3,600 square metres of built space is also equipped with a conference room situated on the sixth floor level.

Tenants have been moving in this week and they are all expected to start operations from their new offices as from next week.

Independence House Annex’s official opening will be held during the national celebrations next month.

Construction work undertaken by Green Island Construction Company started in November 2014 and according to the MLUH, the project has been implemented under a Private Public Partnership (PPP) approach mechanism with a company named Green Tree Investment. Under the arrangement, the government has made available the land while Green Tree Investment has raised necessary financing. Government will now rent office space for the period of recovery of the investment which is expected to be around nine years, after which the building will revert back as government property.

The building has been designed by architect Zoran Vuksanovic.