Obtaining success can be painful but so is experiencing major down fall .Standing at five storeys, the multi-million Grand Manor Hotel was about to open its doors to VIP guests when darkness came over the building in a flash with the arrival of demolition masters.
However in a revealed twist,the demolition of multi-million shillings Grand Manor Hotel in Gigiri was temporarily halted yesterday after the owner Praful Kumar lodged an appeal.
Environment and Land Court judge Benard Eboso ordered that the demolition be stopped for seven days pending the hearing and determination of the case by the businessman.
Whitehorse Investments Limited through lawyer Githinji Marete informed the court that if the orders are not issued, Nairobi county will continue with the demolition of the said property.
The development came hours after Sany, the dreaded National Youth Service excavator, started tearing down the building. It targets diplomats frequenting various embassies and United Nations headquarters.
The excavator, moved in at 5 am and by 3 pm, only a quarter of the humongous building had been demolished. The hotel’s fate was sealed after a Nairobi Environment court failed to quash the demolition notice issued by the Nairobi county government.
Proprietors of the building were served with the notice on December 14, 2017, on the ground that it failed to adhere to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
The move forced the hotel owner under Whitehorse Investments Limited to move to court and apply for judicial review to quash the notice.Do you think Praful stands a tiny bit chance of winning this war?
The owner, Praful Kumar, told court at the time the notice for demolition was issued, he had spent Sh200 million, with the project 75 per cent complete.
The exercise began as at 6.30am in the presence of police officers. Pleas by the businessman’s wife and daughters for the county officials to halt the process to allow them salvage some of the furniture initially fell on deaf ears.
Midway through the demolitions, however, the county officers in charge gave the family 15 minutes to salvage items such as refrigerators, laundry machines, mattresses and other pieces of furniture. They were loaded into vehicles and taken to their residence.
The lavish establishment is situated opposite the US Embassy on one side and the United Nations head offices on the other. To its left is the High Commission of Botswana and on the right the Embassy of Morocco.