V&A’s Silo district on track for wrap-up in 2017
THE R1.5 billion final phase of the Silo district in the Victoria & Alfred (V&A) Waterfront in Cape Town is on track for completion in early 2017.
It boosts to R2.5bn the total investment in the Silo district by the joint owners of the V&A Waterfront, Growthpoint Properties and the Public Investment Corporation (PIC).
Growthpoint and the PIC, the manager of the Government Employees Pension Fund, jointly acquired the V&A Waterfront for R9.7bn in February 2011 from Emirati investment firm Dubai World and several South African empowerment investors.
V&A Waterfront chief executive David Green said yesterday four new developments would introduce more than 35 000m² of mixed-use sustainable developments, including new corporate offices, a residential development, a Virgin Active Classic Health Club, a mid-range internationally branded hotel and more than 1 050 additional parking bays.
Green said about 2 500 people would work in the Silo district daily when it was completed.
A 2012 economic impact study, which was being updated, expected the nominal contribution to gross domestic product from future developments at the V&A Waterfront to total R28bn by 2023, he said.
“With about 30 percent, or 180 000m², of the V&A Waterfront property available for development, the Silo district is our current area of short-term development focus,” he said.
“Development at the V&A is market led, in response to a demand we have seen for bespoke commercial offices and urban residential with harbour and mountain views.”
The district is already home to the Number 1 and Number 2 Silo developments and the location of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, which is under development in the Grain Silo complex.
Number 3 Silo will offer about 10 000m² of residential space, comprising about 75 luxury one- to four-bedroomed apartments that are scheduled for completion in late 2016.
Number 4 Silo will accommodate a 4 000m² Virgin Active Health Club, which is due for completion by early 2016, while Number 5 Silo will offer 13 500m² of multitenanted office space that is expected to be completed by mid-2016.
A 220-key 8 000m² international, mid-market hotel will be housed in Number 6 Silo. It is scheduled to open in early 2017.
Green said the operator for this hotel was expected to be announced in the upcoming months.
Norbert Sasse, Growthpoint’s chief executive, said earlier this year between R3bn and R4bn would be invested in the V&A Waterfront over the next three to four years, much of it in residential apartments.
He said residential, particularly residential for letting, would become a big component of the Waterfront. “We sit with a dilemma in that we [have] probably the most valuable land in the country, if not on the continent, and we don’t necessarily want to sell it.”