Mekelle City Urban Planning

Client: Mekelle City Administration 

Project: Urban design for CBD and inner city, Governance and institutional reform   

Background of the project area

Mekelle is one of the fast growing cities in the country; according to regional urban planning 2018 urbanization and urban development in Tigray report, the city Mekelle that have a 4.7 % Urbanization rate but right now, it is more than this due to different factors. So, the urbanization rate which the national urban development strategy projected Mekelle to have the second city position with the population forecasted until 2035 and planned to have Mekelle urban cluster as one of the polycentric urban development in the country, there are many facts as well that substantiates Mekelle to be the northern urban hub of the country as well as for Eritrea it has many economic and geographical location potential that would strength its economic hub.  However this potential should be supported by strong sustainable urbanization and urban development planning tools that guide the development of the city meet all international and national planning principles and norms.

The Consultancy Service has two main objective

• To develop vision and urban design for the development of a sustainable and vibrant downtown, sub-centers and the urban design of existing settlements.
• To develop governance and institutional restructuring of city wide structures that would improve the service delivery by implementing transparent governance and accountable system

Vision 2032 for Mekelle city, central business district transformation urban design proposal. Our proposal took into consideration the cities past, present and future core values of culture, social and economic asset. The proposal include the extension of the martyrs axis’s to the southern part of the city integrating the city park as a center of the sustainable  new centeral business district extension

Study area: 1,200 hectares