Negotiations for the first property sales within the recently released 17-hectare Bridge City Business Estate – a prime location 17 kilometres from the Durban port and 23 kilometres from the King Shaka International Airport – are well underway.
The entire 60-hectare Bridge City development, which includes the mixed-use commercial and residential Town Centre as well as the Business Estate, is expected to attract public and private investment totalling over R10 billion. Of this, the newly released Business Estate is expected to contribute R1 billion.
Cyril Gwala, Tongaat Hulett’s development director responsible for Bridge City, the RiverHorse Valley Business Estate and Cornubia, is confident that the entire Bridge City Town Centre and Business Estate will be a reality within the next five years.
He says the Bridge City Business Estate, which is based on a mixed-use model similar to that of the highly successful RiverHorse Valley Business Estate, is a greenfields development that is expected to transform the surrounding communities of Inanda, Ntuzuma and KwaMashu.
Massive strides have already been made in the Town Centre and services have been installed. Construction began on the vibrant Bridge City shopping centre in 2008, providing for 68 000m² of retail space and tenanted by some of the biggest names in South African retail including Spar, Woolworths and the Edcon Group as well as restaurants such as Spur and Chicken Licken.
The Bridge City shopping centre is one of the anchors of the 43-hectare Bridge City Town Centre together with the iconic regional Magistrate’s Court which opened in May 2013.
Additional key developments within the new Town Centre are expected to include a R1,2 billion, 450-bed public regional hospital for which the piling and services have already been completed.
The 17-hectare Business Estate is expected to attract a wide variety of investors and is ideal for distribution centres and logistics companies, building material retailers, fast-moving consumer goods wholesalers and retailers as well as light industrial operations.
The sizes of sites – which are priced at R1 400 per square metre of platform area – depend on the topography and the needs of individual investors. The Town Centre sites are priced at R950 per square metre of retail bulk (subject to a minimum FAR of 1.5) and R300 per square metre of residential bulk. These prices are currently being reviewed.
