The six property owners who some ten months ago founded the Somerset West CBD Building Owners Forum launched an initiative aimed at upgrading the CBD further.
The owners appealed to the municipality to be allowed to have a special rates area in which higher rates will be used to fund a city improvement initiative which will exert stricter controls on vagrancy, petty crime and informal trading. The initiative will also, it is reported, lead to buildings in the area being steadily improved and being able to attract increasingly better tenants.
One of the first property owners to fall in line with the proposals was the Chang Property Trust who now own the 3450 m2 retail and office complex, The Avenues, which fronts onto Main and Drama Streets.
Flora Chang, Chief Executive of the Chang Property Trust, said that the upgrading, which will cost in the region of R5 million, is being done in three phases, the first of which is for the surrounding precinct including the laying of extensive cobbled paving, is already complete.
The Rawson Property Group’s Somerset West based commercial franchise, run by Johann van der Merwe, has been mandated to find tenants for the nine retail outlets in the centre and later possibly for the approximately 270 m2 of office space. Van der Merwe said that his team is looking for upmarket clothing and lifestyle retailers as well as restaurant and coffee shop owners. Although this is an outward bound centre where the shops’ exteriors open to the public and to passersby, the central light filled atrium, which is now being enlarged, is particularly well suited to sophisticated restaurant and bistro operations.
“As this very ambitious, very well conceived upgrade moves forward, it is becoming clear that all tenants will be getting newly renovated A grade facilities. I do sincerely believe that the improvements to interiors installed by Watermarc will make this one of the most attractive buildings in the whole town.”
For further information contact Johann van der Merwe on 084 500 0172.
