Businesses scheduled to be relocated due to the Sheraton expansion project in the Arada District will be appealing to the project’s office requesting an explanation to why they were not given the forms to fill when residents are already getting registered and beginning the process of finding alternative living sites.
 

Another 50 businesses in the Kirkos District appealed to their District office with similar pleas two weeks ago. The businesses would like to get answers before demolition and relocation work begins.
 

The expansion project, which was scheduled to start demolition work on July 7, 2006, has not yet started due to cement shortage in the country.
 

According to Mesay Tefera, Project Officer in the Kirkos District, the businesses have nothing to fear as they will be placed in areas allotted for business within the condominium houses currently being built to house displaced residents. He also said that vacant land will be offered to businesses who organize themselves into a group or association.
 

These businesses include shop retailers,  butchers, barbers, flour mills and bars.
 

The Addis Abeba City Land and Development Authority wants to clear 37.7ht of land for the Sheraton Addis expansion project. The Luxury Collection hotel, which is celebrating its eighth year of operation, never completed its first phase of construction work.
 

According to Mesay, the Addis Abeba Caretakers Administration has budgeted 70 million Br to compensate residential owners who live in the 900 private houses and the 2,250 houses under the Kebele and Rented Houses Agency affected by the expansion.
 

“They have collected 98pc of the information from the residents and most of the private and kebele house dwellers are in the process of filling the required forms,” said Mesay.
 

A source in the Arada District office confirmed that it was planned to relocate the tenants of the kebele and Agency homes to condominiums that are being built throughout the city. But like the Sheraton expansion, the construction of these condominiums is delayed due to the lack of cement.
 

Inaugurated in 1998 by Kassahun Ayele, then minister of Trade and Industry, the Sheraton Addis is a three-phase project to include a cinema and an Olympic size swimming pool.

To continue the project, the owner, Sheik Mohammed Al- Amoudi, requires a huge tract of land in front of the complex where the Federal Police Garage is located and a large area south of the hotel.

In this expansion plan, 2,797 houses will be demolished covering 13.2ht from the Arada District in Kebele 22 and 24.5ht covering the land in  the Kirkos District in the Kebeles 21, 24 and 25.  This area includes the Ministry of Foreign Affaires Protocol Office, the Ethiopian Mapping Agency and all the houses behind the Filwoha spa and hotels.

Sheraton Addis began operation in 1998. The five-star  hotel employs more than 600 permanent workers.