Six New High-Rise Projects Set to Transform Nairobi's Skyline by 2029

Drive along Uhuru Highway today and you will see the cranes. Not the construction cranes of desperation — of developers who over-leveraged and must build to repay — but the measured cranes of confidence. Nairobi's commercial real estate market, which was severely tested by the 2024 economic turbulence and the uncertainty that followed the anti-government protests, is evidently recovering faster than most analysts predicted.

Six significant new high-rise projects have received approved development permits from Nairobi City County in August and early September 2026, a cluster of approvals that the county's Urban Planning Director says reflects a "healthy pipeline of investment that we have been building toward for two years."

The most ambitious of the six is a 42-storey mixed-use development in Upperhill, to be developed by a Mauritius-registered special purpose vehicle backed by South African and Kenyan institutional pension fund investors. The building will include Grade A office space on floors 10-35, serviced apartments on floors 36-40, and retail and restaurant space on the lower three floors, with a rooftop observatory and events venue at the top.

The remaining five projects include two residential towers in Westlands, a student housing complex near the University of Nairobi, a hotel-and-office combination on Ngong Road, and a 25-storey apartment building in Kasarani designed specifically for middle-income buyers with financing partnership from a Kenyan commercial bank.

Property analysts note that Nairobi landlords who have spent recent years in revenue disputes with tenants are increasingly open to profit-sharing models that reduce upfront rent risk — an innovation that could make new buildings more lettable in a market that still has significant Grade A office vacancy in existing stock. "The supply conversation is changing. Landlords who adapt will thrive. Those who don't will find their buildings empty," said property consultant Anne Waithaka of Knight Frank Kenya.