Another shopping centre opens

A new convenience shopping precinct offering a vibrant highstreet café lifestyle with boutique retailing has opened at Century City.

Built at a cost of R25 million, the ground floor line shops with parking conveniently located in front of the shops, form part of the R300 million Colosseum mixed-use development nearing completion on a prime gateway site at the Ratanga Road entrance to Century City.

Tenants include Woolworths Food, News Café, Vida e, Harleys Gents Hair, Chatz Cellular; 3@1 (postal and business communications store), and Property World, the official on-site agents for residential property at Century City.

Most tenants have already opened with the balance expected to follow shortly.

Negotiations with a number of complementary tenants for the remaining four shops, which range in size from 40sq m to 270sq m, are well advanced, says Leigh Metcalf of managing agents, Rabie Property Administrators.

“There is pent-up demand for shops in this high profile development and we are working on providing a strong tenant mix to provide convenience retailing in a vibrant environment.”

Most tenants, she says, will be trading extended hours, seven days a week.

Besides ground floor retail, the Colosseum also compromises 8 400sq m of offices over three levels topped by an all-suite luxury hotel on the top two floors. To be operated by Protea Hotels, the four-star, R100 million Colosseum Luxury Suite Hotel is scheduled to open by end May.

The sectional title offices have all been sold and most are already occupied.

Metcalf says the shopping precinct is strongly supported by tenants in the Colosseum and passing trade and will further benefit from neighbouring commercial developments, including the 10 000sq m office development, The Forum, which is well under construction on an adjacent site and where buyers have snapped up 90% of sectional title office space.

Sales and letting manager Giles Balmer says less than 1 000sq m in the 10 720sq m development remained to be sold.

“The majority of the 28 purchasers in the development have been owner occupiers who account for about 65% of the space sold to date.

Negotiations for the sale of the last remaining standalone building of 770sq m, and two offices of 119sq m each, are currently in process with three potential owner occupiers which will take the percentage of owner occupiers to well over 75%,” he says.

Purchasers to date include Dental Information Systems which has acquired one standalone building of about 2 700sq m and Media Monitoring which has acquired a 770sq m building.

In addition, export import business Nexxus Corporation has taken out a long term lease over two floors totaling more than 1 300sq m.

Although forming one development, the Forum buildings will all have their own individual character and will thus enable corporate users to reflect their own identity.

Parking is being provided on a ratio of four per 100sq m. Plentiful additional parking will be available in close proximity to the complex which is also close to Century City’s public transport interchange. Phase one of the development, which is being financed by Nedbank, is scheduled for completion in December this year with phase two following in March 2008.

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