"Looking back over more than three decades in property, some of the projects I value most are not necessarily the biggest. They are the ones where there was no established blueprint to follow."
A personal perspective from Dale Ramsden, Director of Ramsden Africa
When we developed The Palms in Lagos, Nigeria did not yet have a modern regional shopping mall. There was no meaningful local precedent or market data to rely on. We had to understand the opportunity, convince international retailers including Shoprite and Game to enter the market, adapt the development as we learned, and deliver with a contractor that had never built a shopping centre before.
The result was Nigeria’s first shopping mall, and a development that helped demonstrate the commercial potential of formal retail in the country. That experience taught me something that has remained central to the way I approach development today:
Being first requires vision. Making it work requires judgement.
Understand the market before you shape it
I have been fortunate to work on developments across Nigeria, Ghana, Tanzania and other Sub-Saharan African markets, from retail destinations to corporate headquarters and mixed-use commercial assets.
One of the most important lessons has been that you cannot simply take a successful development model from one market and replicate it somewhere else.
When we delivered Accra Mall, Ghana had no comparable regional shopping centre. The opportunity was significant, but the development still had to be structured around the realities of that market. An anchor-led strategy helped establish footfall and commercial resilience, and the completed mall became a reference point for subsequent retail development in Ghana.
Years later, Junction Shopping Centre in Nungua required a different response. Rather than over-scaling the opportunity, we developed a neighbourhood centre calibrated to its growing local catchment, accessibility and tenant demand.
For me, that is what experience brings: not a formula, but the ability to recognise what a particular opportunity needs.
Tenants are part of the development strategy
I have always believed that successful commercial property starts with understanding the people and businesses that will ultimately occupy it.
At Ikeja City Mall in Lagos, location, anchors, parking and tenant mix were considered as interconnected parts of the development strategy from the outset. Today, the centre accommodates more than 90 brands and attracts over five million visitors annually.
The lesson is straightforward: we should not create buildings and then hope the market responds.
We need to understand demand early enough for it to help shape what we create. Sometimes development means having the courage to change direction. Not every successful project starts with a blank piece of land.
At Amani Place in Dar es Salaam, the challenge was an underperforming existing asset. We repositioned the property, removed an unsuitable parking structure, created a purpose-built headquarters for Barclays and reconfigured the development around the needs of its occupiers. The result was a fully let, energy-efficient A-grade office asset.
Projects like this reinforce another lesson: good development is not about defending the original plan. It is about making the right decision for the asset.
Long-term value is the real measure
Buildings eventually become part of a city. The best ones do more than generate an investment return, they can help establish new commercial districts, attract businesses and influence what follows.
Stanbic Heights, for example, was Ghana’s first A-grade office block and helped establish Airport City as a destination for banks and multinational businesses. Accra Financial Centre subsequently strengthened the Ridge financial district and was recognised with the 2017 Africa Property Investment Award for Best Commercial High-Rise Development.
Today, through Ramsden Africa, I continue to apply those lessons to the next generation of projects. Our current work includes development management of the new KPMG Ghana Head Office, where workplace flexibility, climate response, cultural expression and staff wellbeing have been considered from the concept stage.
After more than three decades in this industry, I remain as interested in what comes next as I am proud of what has already been delivered. Africa continues to offer extraordinary development opportunities. But unlocking them requires more than capital or ambition. It requires market understanding, strong relationships, commercial discipline, adaptability and, above all, the ability to turn a vision into something that works in the real world.
That is what development has always meant to me.”
Dale Ramsden
Built with Vision. Proven Through Delivery.