5 Future Developments In Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka and Colombo are changing every day. Here are some big developments I think/hear will take place in the next five years.
1. Casino Strip
I recently attended a lovely wedding at Cinnamon Lakeside. They have a new boat restaurant (called 8 degrees I think) and we were able to take it and do donuts around the Beira Lake. As you spin, you notice the hotel on one side, the WTC in a corner, and a bunch of warehouses on the other. That road, McCallum Street to me (D.R. Wijewardena if you want to be post-colonial about it) is, I hear, being moved. The Convention Center there has already been nationalized, and there’s already a bunch of not much there besides. What will go up along that part of the Beira seem to be casinos, foreign investors with local partners. This is what I hear, so not especially sourced.
2. Liberty Plaza
Liberty Plaza is known as being a mediocre mall. It should soon be completely redeveloped with a walkway to the Liberty Cinema on the other side and, I hear, that empty tomb of a casino finally opening nearby. The main dev seems to be a 20,000 square foot food court, replacing the current, like, 1000 square foot one.
There’s talk that the mall will be expanded to bring major brands into the space next to that huge, hitherto empty casino edifice, but I’m not sure if that building will become a mall or remain, as intended, a casino. I’m also not sure what happens to the Colpetty Market across the street.
3. City Of Lanka
The Southern Expressway only really makes sense as a system. Once the Circular Road around Colombo and Highways to Kandy and the Airport come online, it’ll all come together.
The Outer Circular Highway will create highway entries near Ragama, Kadawatha, and Kaduwela. These are still remote and slow areas to get to from Colombo itself, but now these areas can develop and a lot of provincial traffic can pass through there rather than clogging up Colombo.
The Colombo-Kandy Highway is set to connect at Kadawatha (partially by 2016, probably by 2020), and the airport road near Ragama (they say 2012). Then there is an Airport to Anuradhapura road, eventually linking to a Northern Expressway to Jaffna (The Next Expressways).
This will basically bring a lot of Sri Lanka within 3 hours of itself, comparable to many megacities. to central Colombo than you do travelling from the edges of Sri Lanka.
4. Pettah
The Dutch Hospital complex and Colombo Night Races were just the start of the redevelopment of Colombo central. The fish market has already been moved and I think, also, Pettah will be redeveloped. I like Pettah, but it is still moving ridiculously low value goods on high value real estate. On my last trip there I bought a Rs. 100 head massager (amazing), a Rs. 600 watch and a roll of rubber yoga mat material (Rs. 1000). Pettah remains the one shopping district you can walk around, but the stuff they sell there is random at best.
As Sri Lanka develops, those guys can and probably will be bought out to make way for more branded stores, modernizing and filling out the logical shopping center of the city. In the worst case the government will take and re-privatize the land, but I think these aren’t illegal settlements and the people there would I think sell. Recently, about 2 perches on Front Street was going for around $120,000 USD. Note that I think Pettah will change more than I hear anything.
5. Colombo Racecourse
The Colombo Racecourse (near the Sports Ministry, and Royal College) has essentially been a haunted house as long as I remember, but they look set to redevelop it as a Dutch Hospital style historical shopping center. While the center of gravity is moving towards central Colombo, the current center is currently out here, in the suburbs, so this will be good to serve the populations of Havelock and Bamba, etc.
Etc
Note that this is only the tip of the iceberg. There are hotels coming up across from Galle Face Green and land being reclaimed from the sea there. The Marine Drive road should be extended to Mount Lavinia and perhaps beyond. Majestic City mall is expanding, and I’m sure someone will move into Colombo central with a mall and/or a city hotel.
Meanwhile Unawatuna is booming, and LOLC just spent a billion rupees on a resort in Dikwella. Arpico, Cargills, Keells and Softlogic have considerable cash reserves and they’re all moving (more) into finance and investment, and this is not to mention foreign investment. Now foreigners can buy land without a 100% tax and Sri Lanka is obviously happening.
Honestly, things are changing everyday as Sri Lanka enters something of a post-war development singularity. There’s about 30 years of pent-up work to do, so I think we’ll see a lot in the next five years.
UPDATE: just heard that they’re building a giant lotus TV tower on the Beira. Who knew.
Posted on Wednesday, January 4th, 2012 in Business, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Mohsin Hamid, author of How To Get Filthy Rich In Rising Asia, has a nice 
I’m happy to be featured in Echelon magazine’s 40 Under 40 feature, profiling young people who contribute to the economy in some way, mainly in business but also in terms of innovation and thought leadership. It’s an interesting article not just in that I’m in it (mainly for work on indi.ca and 
I won’t add too much commentary, but just read I guess. The youngest Rajapaksa, Rohitha (Chi Chi) has given an amazing interview to the 
In 2009 this strange character appeared on the Sri Lankan Internet scene, getting angry, flaming, trolling whatever. Then he started naming anonymous bloggers, posting comments as people’s kids, nasty stuff, for which I removed him from 
Its so good to hear positive things about Sri Lanka after all these years.
With Mustafa’s of Singapore planning to establish a huge Shopping-cum-Hotel Complex in Mutwal, the signs and benefits of economic activity should also spread to Colombo North pretty soon.
Yeah but the proposal sounds a bit far fetched – something like a 900 room hotel + shopping? Hopefully they actually go ahead and build it instead of being yet another waste of time venture.
They’re building a Northumbria or something associated university in Mattakuliya. I saw the beginning, it looks huge
Vaporware
The University is called Northshore College of Business and Technology. The degrees will be granted by U of West of England, located in Bristol. The key people include Neranjan Gunawardene, former Deputy Vice Chancellor at U of Moratuwa and Vishaka Nanayakkara, former head of computer sciences at U Moratuwa.
To Sri Lankans at SL now, read this article as a Sri Lankan…
To Sri Lankans living abroad now, MUWAAHAHAHA !!! :P
The people who were wishing and hoping desperately for Sri Lanka to end up in a heap of dust (this includes a sizeable segment of the UNP and its supporters and hangers-on), all this must come has a sour taste in their mouths.
Mewa ahala unta bada yanawa athi lol
The Casino next to Liberty Plaza is now LB Finance!
that’s because the casino & LB finance are both owned by the same person.
Are you talking about this: http://www.ft.lk/2011/12/29/lb-finance-buys-deputy-chairmans-property-for-rs-789-m-for-new-hq/
Well.. these are really five future developments in COLOMBO. I am MUCH more excited to see the people in the North and East finally having a decent life, being able to cultivate their land, start businesses, send their kids to school and have proper medical services. I would be awesome to see rule-of-law consolidated and political violence reduced, to enhance our sovereign ratings and attract sustainable investment. A “big development” will be if our messed up education system is improved, if we finally have equality in our secondary schools and our youth leave local universities with a solid education. We ll be “styling” when we have more women in parliament, less domestic violence, and less kids being orphaned. These are harder to achieve and are certainly less sexy but we will certainly be more “happening”.
Though I am excited about these development projects in and around Colombo, as a country we should be evaluating development as when rule of law returns to this country, when this culture of impunity stops, When judiciary, police and elections are independent, when all citizens enjoy equal rights, when govt starts to serve minorities in their official language, armed paramilitaries are done away with along with white vans and ransom. corruption, thuggery and violence by politicos are eliminated.
Amen to what Chaminda and Gun said. I’d also like to see everyone having access to clean water and proper sanitation.
The new roads are great. Laying pavements and cleaning up the city and suburbs is great.
The Dutch Hospital Complex is nice.
The Nelum Pokuna Centre is a good thing, though I personally don’t think the design blends well.
I suppose the casinos will be good for tourism, but vice will rise too, but thankfully that strip is not residential.
From what I hear the night races were a huge waste of money. Those private sector sponsors, like the one that let the youngest first son trash a sports car while training, are surely expecting something in return.
The proposed lotus tower looks awful.
Wonder who’ll shop at all these new malls. Foreigners and the super rich?
Rent, rates and taxes will increase. Will Colombo become inaccessible to ordinary people except to work or gawk?
What about parks and green spaces? Hope they’ll reserve some areas for these.
Happy new year shammi!
Malls will always end up catering for the middle class.
HEJ DODO, Happy New Year to you too!
I was imagining exclusive branded stores from what Indi wrote.
Middle class? No way. Malls in SL attract the upper middle class to upper classes only. Everyone else is made to feel very unwelcome or they are priced out. The posh twats like it that way so they don’t have to mix the hoi polloi.
Which malls are you talking about? If you mean Crescat or Odel, sure. But the Liberty Plazas and Majestic cities are definitely middle class. If that.
There are no tourists come to sri lanka for gambling. specially europeans go to Casinos to drink and eat for free.Only asians gambal in casinos..the rest are newly rich sri lankans.
Guess you’re right. There must be a lot of them though, else how do people like Dhammika Perera get to that place, starting from nothing?
“A lot” is the operative word here. Dammika is probably worth a billion in USD
well i don’t think we have this many local gamblers to satisfy the purposed casino investments. there are enough for few ppl like Dammika Perera bt not to satisfy hundreds of millions of $ in investments.
i don’t think Dammika Perera made a that big investment.
[...] during the Deyata Kirula exhibition. I welcome the new developments in Sri Lanka (roads, ports, airports, buildings, malls). Dev isn’t a zero sum game and that’s part [...]
Sri Lanka to build three elevated highways in capital
Jan 12, Colombo: Sri Lanka will build three elevated highways to ease the traffic congestion in the Colombo Metropolitan Area, the government announced today.
The three elevated Highways are to be constructed from Kirulapone to Kadawata, Colombo Fort to Kottawa and from Colombo Fort to Peliyagoda.
A 19-kilometer segment from Kirulapone to Kadawata will connect the Outer Circular Highway, the belt around Colombo that is under construction, at Kadawata and Colombo -Katunayake expressway at Peliyagoda.
Another segment of 21 kilometer from Colombo Fort to Kottawa will connect Southern Expressway and Outer Circular Highway at Kottawa.
The approximately 5- kilometer highway from Colombo Fort to Peliyagoda will connect to the interchange at Peliyagoda on Colombo- Katunayake Expressway that connects the country’s international airport.
http://www.colombopage.com/archive_12/Jan12_1326372342CH.php
that’s looks awfully expensive