Jabali Towers Puts Tatu City’s Urban Dream to the Test

A new high-rise development outside Nairobi is testing whether Kenya’s next wave of urban growth can happen beyond the capital’s traditional centres. 

Dubbed Jabali Towers, the 88,000-square-metre development within Rendeavour’s 5,000-acre Tatu City will feature a 36-storey residential tower and a 25-storey residential block, built around a 150-room hotel, Grade A office space, and 35 retail and restaurant units. 

The development’s taller block would rank among Kenya’s tallest residential buildings once completed, although it enters a market where several taller projects are already under construction.

But Jabali Towers’ real significance is not its height, but its location—outside the traditional areas where Kenya’s high-rise development has mainly been concentrated, such as Nairobi’s Upper Hill, Westlands, Kilimani, and Riverside.

The development challenges that pattern by testing whether buyers will trade a prestigious postcode for a new kind of address — a privately planned city where infrastructure, security, and amenities matter more than proximity to the centre.

Early sales for the project, being built by main contractor China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), suggest strong demand, with Rendeavour reporting Tower A already 75 per cent pre-sold across units from studios to three-bedroom apartments starting at Sh9.7 million.

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If this pace holds up, it could point to a broader shift in what buyers are prioritising — favouring dependable infrastructure and lifestyle offerings over the pull of traditional neighbourhood status. That is essentially the wager Tatu City has been built on. 

Over the past 15 years, Rendeavour has been putting money into roads, water, power, and digital networks, building Tatu City into a self-contained urban hub. Jabali Towers is the first project at true skyscraper scale to test whether those foundations can support high-density living rather than simply low-rise housing and industrial activity. 

Announcing the groundbreaking, Rendeavour founder Stephen Jennings said “quality is non-negotiable and drives every decision we make,” positioning Jabali Towers as a test of both Rendeavour’s quality standards and its wider bet on Tatu City’s future.

The challenge for Jabali Towers is proving that infrastructure can create the same urban pull as established city centres. A successful tower needs more than apartments; it needs residents, businesses, retail, and services that bring a place to life. 

Tatu City already has many of these foundations, but Jabali Towers will test whether a new address can generate the same energy as Nairobi’s established high-rise districts.

The longer-term question is whether enough activity will develop around projects like Jabali Towers to create the same economic energy and daily convenience found in Nairobi.

Jabali Towers is scheduled to open in 2028, the same year Tatu City’s Wellington College International Kenya campus is due to welcome students. 

Before that, the city’s Tatu Wildlife Sanctuary is set to open later this year, adding another piece to Rendeavour’s argument that a complete urban ecosystem, rather than a Nairobi postcode, could define the next generation of Kenyan real estate.

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