Tower Property Fund purchased the Cape Quarter in 2013 with a long-term vision of creating an attractive inner city lifestyle precinct where people can live, work and play. According to Tower's Johan Malherbe, the centre is well on track to meet this goal.
“Currently we are developing a mixed-use building at 32 Napier Street which will be made up of 19 residential apartments, one and a half floors of commercial space, and 130 parking bays.
Expected to be completed by May 2017, the apartments will range in size from between 45m2 to 130m2 per apartment, with balconies adding further size to each. The ground and first floors of the building will be used for commercial tenants and will total approximately 546m2, whilst three levels of underground parking will be added below the building and stretching down Napier Street.
This adds essential new parking bays to an area that is sorely lacking in this valuable commodity.
“The De Waterkant development forms part of the Cape Quarter precinct,” says Malherbe, who explains some of the renovations and rejuvenation that has been undertaken at the Cape Quarter complex since it was purchased by Tower.
“The Cape Quarter was the first property in the Tower portfolio to undergo a lighting and solar retrofit. The lighting retrofit involved all the lighting being replaced with LED, and resulted in an impressive R850,000 per annum saving in energy costs for the property. The extensive PV solar system installation saw 702 solar panels being installed on the roof of the Cape Quarter Square and results show that they will allow for an electricity saving of approximately R400,000 per annum.”
“We have also created in excess of 1000m2 of lettable space within the Cape Quarter, part of which now houses Deloitte’s new state-of-the-art Innovation Centre.”
Malherbe explains that in order to create this extra space, a tenant reshuffle was undertaken which ultimately improved the positioning and maximises the exposure of several of the Cape Quarter tenants, who now find themselves in much more visible areas around the centre.
“The retail component of the Cape Quarter has turned around. Vacancies are at an all-time low and the centre houses the most profitable Bootleggers in South Africa, whilst Jenny Morris’s Giggling Gourmet and its associated restaurant Yumcious have reported a huge increase in turnover – as have most of the other retail tenants.”
Going forward Tower plans to develop further residential units within the Cape Quarter precinct to meet the demand from the public who increasingly wish to take up residence in the inner city of Cape Town.
“The Piazza at the Cape Quarter will house upmarket residential units which have been sensitively designed to compliment the heritage of the area,” explains Malherbe. “There is a great demand for living space within the Cape Town CBD, and particularly within the area of the Cape Quarter. This was made evident through the Napier Street development where we had buyers approaching us to reserve apartments before we even started the development and we hope to start the Piazza residential development early next year.”
