PLANNING was privileged to be part of the team developing the masterplan for a proposed light industrial park for First Logistics Ltd at Athi River outside Nairobi. Its location in the fast-growing and strategically located Athi River area, its convenience, and advantageous proximity to the City of Nairobi and the major road routes to Tanzania and Mombasa add to the unique quality of the area.

In the exercise, PLANNING endeavored to not only create a place that works from a logistics point of view but one of quality; where people will want to work, run their businesses from, and connect their logistics to. Our key design and layout informants remained and were implemented; flexibility as key; coherence; the right balance between the route network, and open spaces. We carefully coordinated strategies with the consulting transport planners, engineers, and physical planners on the project to ensure that transport planning and services engineering work as efficiently as possible.

The project brief called for a mixed number of land uses with light industrial being primary supported by a business/commercial precinct and a transport administration precinct. The road network was designed to start at a single customs-controlled access point at the southwest of the site. The network then proceeded to loop around the site in a double-loaded road reserve and carriage hierarchy. Lorry parking and screening were provided for at the entrance customs zone.