Luxury Condo Building To Rise In Kandahar

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Nov 17th 2007 at 3:02PM

Picture this: luxury condo apartments with marble floors, coffered ceilings and underground parking selling for $45,000 to $65,000. It sounds like a deal except for the fact that in real estate it all comes down to location. The Al-Jadeed building is in the city of Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban and still not the safest place to live. Developer Ahmed Khan says the seven-story building is the first luxury building in the area and he believes that private business can rise again in Kandahar. He says the building will have electricity and wireless Internet access 24 hours a day which are luxuries in the area. Even though Kandahar is Afghanistan's second-biggest city by population, this building will only be the second one in the city with an elevator.Three security guards posted at each of the two entrances at all times. Rents for the suites in the building are estimated to be in the $250 to $400 a month range which is far above the usual rent in the city. Many of the buyers and renters are Afghans living in the West who still want a pied a terre in their homeland.

Tags: afghanistan, ahmed khan, al-jadeed, kandahar, taliban