eThekwini municipality is looking to remove the Wheel China Mall in South Beach as the city seeks to “resuscitate” the central business district.
For a city that prides itself on its tourism and ocean economy, mayor Mxolisi Kaunda told TimesLIVE Premium that they will engage with those in charge of the mall “in good spirit” to explain that the city needs the prime land in the Point precinct.
The multi-storey mall is home to mainly small business outlets, including phone repair stores, salons, massage parlours and various clothing shops, though there are also established businesses like Mr Price and Cash Crusaders.
It has many vacant outlets.
“We will engage with them robustly because we do not want them there. That area is prime land because it’s next to the ocean and you can’t keep businesses that you don’t even understand. We will say to them, these are the standards, so if they don’t meet those standards, let’s look at other investors who will make the city work,” said Kaunda.
This comes just weeks after eThekwini council approved a plan to demolish the Xinhua Emporium, another China mall also in the CBD, after the failure of its owners to adhere to a court order to demolish it after suffering extensive fire damage last year.
Kaunda said these actions will go a long way to revive the CBD and attract tourists, as well as investment in the city.
“Our plans aim to resuscitate the CBD: make it work and bring back investment and team operators, as well as build social houses in the CBD, so that we have people residing and spending money in the CBD.”
He added that their analysis of the state of the city showed that it is because of how the CBD and secondary towns like Isipingo, Pinetown and Verulam looked, that people referred to the city as a “failed state”.
However, Kaunda said cities such as New York in the US and Copenhagen in Denmark were once faced with similar challenges but were able to rise from them.
“New York comes from a (similar) state to that of eThekwini: people were urinating everywhere, refuse collection was a problem and they had security and crime issues. Cities like Copenhagen even went to the extreme where they were bankrupt, but look at where they are today.”
He said eThekwini was working towards a similar recuperation to remove “decay”.
One of those factors was that, in their quest to see new job come to the market, they allowed investors to take their business wherever they wanted in the city and did not pay much attention to the CBD, which resulted in more development on the outskirts.
“This is a global trend. They develop other cities on top of others, but they return to the original CBD and resuscitate them.”
He said the city will change its approach in how they combat the issue of hijacked buildings, which Kaunda said had become dens for criminals and drug dealers.
On the tourism industry’s perspective, we’re actually quite happy that the municipality is looking at the inner city and its rejuvenation, especially from a tourism standpoint.
— Fedhasa KZN chair, Brett Tungay
He mentioned an operation when they went on to evict people occupying hijacked buildings, only to be met by an urgent court interdict by a senior counsel barring them from those evictions.
“How much does a senior counsel cost to apply for an urgent interdict? How can those afford that? It’s because drug dealers are behind them. They know that when there is stability, adherence to the laws and bylaws, there will be no space for them to operate.”
“We have changed our approach to have intelligence-driven operations rather than have the police zooming there and not finding anything. It’s important to work with all the law enforcement agencies because we have to ensure that this city works.”
However, Federated Hospitality Association of South Africa (Fedhasa), had a different view.
“On the tourism industry’s perspective, we’re actually quite happy that the municipality is looking at the inner city and its rejuvenation, especially from a tourism standpoint,” said Brett Tungay, KZN chairperson of Fedhasa.
However, Tungay said the city had more pressing matters to take care of in the quest to restore the CBD, before pointing to which businesses to remove, especially in the notoriously crime-ridden Point area.
He suggested that the city look at sorting out existing challenges including: the beaches, pools around the beaches, sanitation, infrastructure, as well as safety and security in the beachfront and the whole CBD.
“Once those are sorted out you will start seeing people come back. After all of that, we can then start considering what businesses we have, where they are located and how they fit in to the entire tourism and business environment. So let’s sort the basics out and then we can tackle those issues. I think it’s a bit premature to be looking at specific businesses in the municipality.”
The Wheel, a R90m shopping complex, was opened in 1989 by Sanlam and was popular among tourists and locals with its range of shops, cinema complex and giant wheel in which visitors could ride. However, its popularity waned as the area became notorious for drugs and crime.
It was bought by the Gani family in 2003, and despite a multi-million refurbishment wasn’t able to compete with newer malls including the Pavilion in Westville and Gateway in Umhlanga.
It was sold in 2005 for R100m to a Johannesburg consortium of investors, and in 2011 it became known as the China Mall at The Wheel.
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