The Kigali City Tower project was begun in 2006 by Rwandan businessman Hatari Sekoko, through his company Doyelcy Limited. Sekoko, a Rwandan Patriotic Front veteran of the Rwandan Civil War, worked in Japan from 1995 to raise capital, before returning to Rwanda to start a coffee distribution business and later diversifying into real estate and hospitality. The first phase of the project was the construction of the car park building, which began in 2007. At that stage the tower was proposed as a circular building with a spiral design, which would act primarily as a viewing platform. By 2008, Sekoko's team had changed the building's shape to elliptical in order to create more floor space within the tower.