Downtown Cairo is angling for a new lease on life
Downtown Cairo is angling for a new lease on life. We have, for nearly two decades now, been fascinated by the notion of redeveloping Downtown using a model not dissimilar to that used by Solidere in Beirut. It’s an idea to which we were first introduced by Alaa Saba, who went on with Karim Shafei, and subsequently Ammar AlKhudairy, Hazem Barakat and Samih Sawiris to put his money where his mouth was and create Al Ismaelia Real Estate as what we would call ‘proof of concept writ large.’ Our passion for what happens to this amazing, infuriating, historic city of ours was behind our series Saving Cairo from Itself last summer, wherein SODIC presented its vision for how Cairo as a whole might be given a new lease on life.