Owner of Glen Village Shopping Centre wants to develop more malls, starting with R600m investment

The owner of Glen Village Shopping Centre is planning to invest more than R600 million in refurbishing its shopping centres and building a new mall in the next 12 to 18 months.

Akani Properties, a black-owned property development company, said it is unfazed by the impact of Covid-19, which has left other landlords scrambling to for tenants, especially in bigger malls as consumers favoured smaller convenience centres since the pandemic hit SA’s shores.

“This investment is testament to our belief that the worst is behind us, and the recovery of the economy is on the cards,” said Akani MD Zamani Letjane.

Akani said it is bullish on prospects of the commercial property sector’s partly better-than-expected retail numbers. In June, the Bureau for Economic Research said business confidence surged across all trade sectors in the second quarter of 2021. Retailer confidence, in particular, shot up to a six-year high.

The company, which is a property management arm of the Akani Retirement Fund Administrators, said it will invest R370 million in its planned Autumn Leaf Mall, which is already under development in Zeerust.

The 20 000m² development initially hit a bump when community members of the small farming town objected to its construction, saying it won’t benefit them.

But on Wednesday, Akani said the development is continuing, and the mall is due to open in September 2022.

The mall’s location puts it in a good strategic position, especially now that rural and smaller convenience centres are proving to be more resilient than their big metropolitan counterparts. Also, Zeerust is a transit town between South Africa and Botswana and is one of the growing economic nodes in the North West.

Akani said it will spend the remaining R228 million on the upgrades to the Glen Village Mall in Pretoria East. This will include an extension of the mall, which is set to be completed in November 2022. The company will also install renewable energy generation capacity in these malls to cushion them against load shedding.

“As long-term investors, we have taken a long-term view on South Africa’s economic recovery. We are also at an advanced stage of developing more shopping malls around the country as we seek to boost our portfolio of retail properties,” added Letjane.