Menlyn set to become largest mall in Africa

31 August 2016 - 13:20 By ALISTAIR ANDERSON
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Menlyn Park, Pretoria, is quietly becoming the largest shopping centre in Africa, usurping Durban’s Gateway Theatre of Shopping. It is also set to be larger than iconic shopping centre, Sandton City in Gauteng, and the recently opened Mall of Africa, also in Gauteng.

South African shoppers’ faith in large retail centres is unabated, and many people are choosing to visit malls once or twice a month, doing all of their shopping, as opposed to visiting many small malls many times in a month.

Menlyn Park, which is owned by private company Pareto, is being extended by 50,000m² through a project that cost about R2bn. The super regional mall will be 169,253m² in size by November 2016, and contain about 500 stores. Certain parts of the mall are also being refurbished.

Twelve concierge ambassadors have been appointed to help shoppers and minimise inconvenience.

Gateway is now SA’s second-largest mall, at 166,636 m² and contains 362 stores. Sandton City follows next: it is 146,803 m² and has about 300 stores. Canal Walk is the largest shopping centre in the Western Cape, at 140,567m², with 412 stores.

Mall of Africa, located in the recently constructed Waterfall City in Midrand is 130,000m². It has about 300 stores. It is, nevertheless, the largest mall to be built within a single phase. Durban’s The Pavillion is the next largest mall in SA, given its 120,000m² size. It is followed by Centurion Mall and Cresta, which are 105,000m², and 104,000m² respectively.

These shopping centres are all much smaller than many others in the developing world. Stanlib’s head of listed property funds Keillen Ndlovu says the Mall of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates is about 502,000m². In the rest of Africa, Egypt’s Cairo Festival City Mall boasts 168,000m² of space, while the Mall of Arabia, also in Cairo, has about 180,000m² of gross lettable area.

Read the full story on BDlive

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