All that stands is the billboard announcing the Eliakim Namudjebo Plaza.
Unconfirmed reports say that the owners, the United Africa Group, are failing to raise the needed financing capital.
Haddis Tilahun, the executive director of the United Africa Group, could not comment this week as he was said to be in meetings.
He had earlier indicated that there was huge interest from local and international hopeful tenants. Construction of the Eliakim Namundjebo Plaza was expected to have commenced in February 2007.
According to architectural drawings, the plaza would include a hotel with 150 rooms, restaurants, banks and shops with a total surface area of 6000 square metres and 52000 square metres of prime office space. The plaza would also house a demarcated area for informal trading, a tourist information centre, a bus terminal and 1900 parking bays.
The plaza is named after the late Eliakim Namundjebo who died in 1990 in a car accident on the road between Oshivelo and Oshakati. Namundjebo was one of the small groups of successful northern entrepreneurs with business interests in retailing and subsistence farming.
The United Africa Group is headed by Namundjebo's daughter, Martha, who is also Tilahun’s wife.
It is not the first time that investors have expressed interest in the Ehafo Parking area opposite Kalahari Sands. For almost 10 years, investors have been expressing interest in the open space, each one armed with an ambitious plan for a hotel. The first was by a group of Malaysian investors, who also wanted to construct a multi-million dollar five-star hotel.
Nevertheless, for a group that boosts a number of attractive hospitality accommodations under its portfolio, the United Africa Group may just pull off the multimillion dollar hotel complex.
The United Africa Group's hotel portfolio include the Pelican Bay Hotel in Walvis Bay, the famous Burning Shore Lodge, the Pandu Ondangwa Lodge in Ondangwa, the Hotel Fürstenhof in the Capital as well as the sea-view Hotel Zum Sperrgebiet in Lüderitz.