The entire development of Havelock City was funded by FDI and reinvesting through internally generated funds of the Group, demonstrating the long-term commitment of the investor to the country Chief Executive Officer at Overseas Realty Ceylon, Pravir Samarasinghe said at the opening of the ‘Mireka Tower’ by President Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday.
The mega scale ‘City within a City’ concept was the brainchild of visionary entrepreneur and property tycoon the late S. P. Tao, Founder of the Singapore based Shing Kwan Group, and former Chairman of Overseas Realty (Ceylon) PLC. He also recalled that it was during Ranil Wickremesinghe tenure as the then Prime Minister of Sri Lanka in 2003, that Founder Chairman of the project the late S P Tao was invited to develop this site on the outskirts of Colombo which was then the abandoned Wellawatte Spinning and Weaving Mills.
“Twenty years ago, this site was an urban backwater that contained a dilapidated factory complex, overgrown with trees and bushes, infested with reptiles and animals and housing a number of squatters.”
Tao being a visionary entrepreneur, always looking for trail blazing opportunities, en-visioned the expansion of the City of Colombo, and took up the challenge and conceptualized the entire development of Havelock City, – which is today the largest integrated mixed use development in the Country on nearly 18 acres of land – comprising 8 residential towers with 1,100 luxury apartments, a 7 acre landscaped elevated garden, perhaps the largest in the world, a shopping mall built to international standards and this 50 storey office tower that anchors the entire development.
“Mireka Tower is the most functionally and efficiently designed and built Commercial Property in Colombo, with the most modern building systems and technology to better serve our tenants and customers.
“Through the Havelock City mixed development project, he sought to inject a unique, cosmopolitan urbanization of the city, symbolizing change in Sri Lanka’s capital.”