Nkwashi: Zambia’s Bold Experiment in Building a New City
Thirty-six kilometres east of Lusaka’s city centre, beyond the familiar traffic of Kabulonga and the weekend bustle of Crossroads Shopping Mall, a different kind of ambition is taking shape along Leopards Hill Road.
It is called Nkwashi — and its backers say it is not merely another housing estate, but Zambia’s most modern, master-planned town.
At the centre of the vision is Thebe Investment Management Limited, a Zambian-owned private investment firm that has positioned itself as both developer and long-term steward of what it describes as one of Africa’s largest multi-use, multi-income real estate projects.
Approved by the Lusaka Provincial Planning Authority and the Zambia Environmental Management Authority, Nkwashi is designed as a fully self-contained satellite town — a city built from scratch.
A City in the Making
At full build-out, Nkwashi will contain more than 9,460 residential plots spread across 12 distinct residential districts. Each district will have its own landscaping identity, subdivided into suburbs of roughly 300 properties.
Credit: Nkwashi.com Credit: Nkwashi.com
According to developers, about 3,000 plots have already been purchased by families, investors and individuals — a sign, they argue, that demand for structured urban living outside Lusaka’s core is growing.
Every road is planned to be paved. Each property will be connected to centralised water, sewerage and electricity networks. High speed internet connectivity is part of the blueprint — an increasingly non-negotiable requirement for middle class and professional households.
Unlike informal periurban sprawl, residents will hold titled property registered at the Ministry of Lands, with the freedom to mortgage, sell or pass property on as inheritance.
But perhaps more unusual is the model of governance. Instead of traditional municipal taxation structures, residents will pay rates that fund communal services — road maintenance, garbage collection, park upkeep, security and fire safety — managed internally by the estate.
It is, in many respects, a hybrid between a municipality and a private city.
Learn in Nkwashi: A College Town
Education sits at the heart of the master plan. Nkwashi is designed to host nine schools, anchored by Thebe International School, a day and boarding institution set on a 60 acre campus, offering education from pre-school through A-Levels.
Beyond primary and secondary education, the project envisions an American University with capacity for up to 10,000 students and a 130-acre campus, including a teaching hospital. If realised at scale, this could position Nkwashi as Zambia’s first true “college town,” blending residential life with higher education and research.
For families, whether owner-occupiers or landlords, proximity to quality education is often the deciding factor in property investment. The developers appear to understand this calculus well.
Work: A New Business Address?
At the centre of Nkwashi lies a planned Central Business District designed to accommodate 300,000 square metres of gross lettable area.
In theory, this would allow the town to evolve beyond dormitory status and into a genuine economic hub. The blueprint includes:
Office parks
Light industrial zones
Retail and commercial nodes
Access to Lusaka’s ring roads
Proximity to the Lusaka South Multifacility Economic Zone
Relative closeness to the Chirundu border
Strategically, Nkwashi sits in a corridor increasingly attractive to logistics, manufacturing and professional services.
The project has also drawn support from major institutions, including Stanbic Bank Zambia, Barclays Bank Zambia, Citibank Zambia and Madison Life Insurance — signalling financial sector confidence in the model.
Architectural planning has involved firms such as Louis Karol Architects and Greencode Architects, indicating an emphasis on professional urban design rather than adhoc growth.
Play: Lakes, Parks and the Escarpment
Urban planners often speak of “live, work, play” environments. Nkwashi attempts to embody that principle literally.
The development includes:
Two large lakes
Over 40 acres of parks
More than 100 acres of green spaces
Hiking trails
Sports fields and playgrounds
A planned 40,000 square metre mall on the lakefront
Residents are promised paddle boating, lakeside dining, organised markets, and sweeping views toward the Zambezi escarpment. Within an hour’s drive lies the Lower Zambezi Valley and the Mana Pools region — giving the project a unique selling point: city life with safari country proximity.
Zambia’s Urban Future?
Zambia, like much of subsaharan Africa, faces rapid urbanisation. Lusaka continues to expand outward, often in ways that strain infrastructure and planning capacity.
Projects like Nkwashi represent a different approach — privately master-planned, infrastructure-first, education-centred, and governed by internal rate systems.
Nkwashi stands as one of Zambia’s boldest real estate experiments, a vision of a city built deliberately rather than inherited organically.
If successful, it may redefine how new Zambian cities are planned.
If not, it will remain an ambitious blueprint etched into the red soil east of Lusaka.
Either way, the story of Nkwashi is still being written.
