Five years ago, The Ridge on Abel was in a bad state and on the brink of being classified as a condemned building.
Just four years before that, the building had reportedly been hijacked after the city spent millions of rand refurbishing it.
Now it is set to be home to about 115 inner city residents after the Joburg social housing company (Joshco) took another stab at revamping it, for a little over R20m.
The city unveiled the refurbished The Ridge on Abel at a ceremony presided over by Joburg mayor Dada Morero and human settlements MMC Mlungisi Mabaso. Morero also conducted a “symbolic handover” of the keys to the building's new tenants.
The 12-storey building caters to young people entering the job market, including “young professionals, recent graduates and self-employed individuals”, according to the city.
It boasts 155 rental residential units, 144 of which are bachelor apartments and 11 one-bedroom units, with prices ranging from R1,100 to R1,900.
It will also have a creché, which will not only benefit residents' children but the wider Berea area.
Sixty percent of the intake will be from ward 64, where the building is located, and 40% from other parts of the city. Only South Africans will be accommodated, the city confirmed.
Morero and Mabaso conducted a tour of the building ahead of its official opening on October 15, providing a preview of the freshly painted single rooms, which also have small built-in closets.
They also each have bathroom containing a bathtub, basin and toilet and a small kitchen area.
Some of the units have small balconies, allowing their occupants to step out for fresh air in the privacy of their own home but also giving them a view of the gloomy surrounding area.
One is of a multistorey building where laundry can be seen hanging from the balconies across several floors. Another, just opposite The Ridge, looks cleaner and more habitable, but laundry and DStv cables can be seen hanging off the side of the building.
Mabaso, speaking to TimesLIVE Premium on the sidelines of the unveiling, said that when Joshco acquired the building in 2019, it was abandoned and in a bad state.
This was confirmed by the entity's acting CEO Nokwazi Mtshali, who said that it had acquired the building from the Joburg property company (JPC).
“It was in a very dilapidated state. How it came about to be abandoned, I'd be getting into other people's terrain. So when we got it from JPC, we were looking for programmes in the inner city where we could rejuvenate and refurbish flats and then let them out in terms of rentals.
When we got it [The Ridge], it was in a very bad state. It was almost condemned and we took it upon ourselves to get structural assessments of the building, which indicated that it could be rehabilitated.
— Nokwazi Mtshali, Joshco acting CEO
“So when we got it, it was in a very bad state. It was almost condemned and we took it upon ourselves to get structural assessments of the building, which indicated that it could be rehabilitated.”
While neither Mtshali or Mabaso could speak on the building's history before this, a report by The Star revealed that the building had apparently been hijacked by a syndicate in 2015, just two years after the city spent R40m revamping it.
Mabaso detailed the difficult process of revamping the building, which was hampered by Covid-19.
“The conversion of a building is not easy, taking into consideration the designs and everything else. Because whatever you do must be aligned with the existing structure and there's not much you can do in terms of retrofitting and so forth so it has always been a difficult process, not only for this building but all the Braamfield developments.
“Converting a building that was meant for something else and to repurpose it into a residential area [is not easy but] for us to win this battle, we need to make sure all these buildings are repurposed so that at least we are able to deal with these challenges in the inner city,” he said.
While The Ridge is set to offer a safe and secure space for tenants, having 24-hour CCTV surveillance and biometric access, it stands in contrast to the surrounding Berea area.
One of them is a Joshco-owned building, which Mabaso said was experiencing rent collection challenges.
“That one is not an abandoned building, its tenants who refuse to give access to officials of the city. That's one building that I mentioned we are going to deal with because the tenants are refusing to pay.
“We are going to deal with that, but there are measures we have put in place to deal with it, so we'll give it special attention because it's owned by the city. I've engaged with the tenants and they've raised their issues, but the bottom line is for us to maintain the building, they need to pay. We're not going to take money from other projects to subside their maintenance,” he said.
He confirmed that the city was also in the process of acquiring other surrounding buildings, but this was hampered by the city's limited resources.
At this rate, the city is able to acquire one building per financial year, which was not enough, according to Mabaso.
“That's why I said to the team, we need to start looking into a precinct development because acquiring one building in different parts of the city does not actually assist us in reaching the ultimate goal,” he said.
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