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Aug 07, 2007:
The development of the new R1,1 billion Melrose Arch Piazza, which comprises street-level shopping and upper-floor offices in the successful Melrose Arch mixed-use precinct in northern Johannesburg, is progressing well with construction rising above the ground-level hoarding
Concrete pouring is the current focus of the construction project and main contractor Murray & Roberts Construction acquired a brand-new Liebherr readymix batch plant, which was erected on-site and became operational in June.
“Because of the complexity of moving materials around the congested site, the batch plant was erected in the middle of the 42,000m2 construction area,” says Nicholas Stopforth, a director of Melrose Arch Development Company.
A static pump supplies the concrete from the batch plant, via pipelines, to the various different surfacebeds and slabs. Roughly half of the 50,000m3 of concrete required for the offices, shops, super-basement parking and for the construction of concrete road works extending the existing Melrose Arch High Street and building the new Whitely Road will be produced on site.
Holcim Readymix will supply the remaining concrete for surface-beds and slabs, and all of the concrete for the vertical columns which will be placed by crane. Holcim Jukskei will also supply the crusher sand and 19mm stone for the site batch plant.
Rui Santos, Murray & Roberts Construction Project Director, explains that spreading the load between the site batch plant and an external supplier not only ensures optimal economic and logistic sense, it makes for better efficiency. Efficiency being a key element at this point in time, with the major goal being to make sure that as much concrete is in place as possible before the rainy season starts.
Melrose Arch is owned by Southern Palace Investments, a joint venture between Amdec Property Development and Property Partners. Amdec is also the appointed development manager for Melrose Arch, driving the roll-out of all development projects on this prestigious mixed-use precinct. The Melrose Arch Piazza Scheme is financed by Nedbank.
Melrose Arch Piazza comprises nine separate highly individualised buildings with street-level retail and prime office space in the upper levels, located at the northern end of the existing development. There will be 28,000m2 of retail and leisure space and 31,000m2 of lettable office space above the retail space. The shopping component is scheduled for completion by Easter 2009, while the office component will be completed a month later.
The Melrose Arch Piazza forms an extension to the existing mixed-use fabric of Melrose Arch, Melrose Arch Piazza will be integrated carefully with the old in terms of new complementary façades. The office buildings will also integrate seamlessly with the existing basement parking and above ground open-street movement patterns, all with clearly defined public and private domains.
DHK Architects and Boogertman & Partners, the architects and town planners on the project, state that the attractive, flexible and readily subdivisible office buildings will have varied façades. The urban street edges will be positioned carefully around the new Piazza, which forms the heart of the new precinct.
Stopforth reports that the development rollout of Melrose Arch is proceeding well, with over 175,000m2 of a total of 315,000m2 in the precinct either built or under construction.
