June 15, 2005
By Anish Abraham
JSE Securities Exchange board members swapped their suits for more casual wear on Saturday, 11 June when they joined officials from the City of Johannesburg and the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) on a tour of Soweto and the inner city.
City officials organised the tour to show the economic developments that are taking place in the CBD and the township.
Lael Bethlehem, the director of the City's economic development, tourism and marketing department, said it was vital to promote the City's economic development initiatives, and the JSE board was an ideal place to start looking for private investment.
The JSE's marketing director, Geoff Rothschild, agreed, saying, "this was something that had to be done".
Some of the guests admitted that it had been months since they had ventured out of the city's northern suburbs and into the inner city, never mind travelling further south into South Africa's largest township.
Baralink
First up was the
Baralink development outside the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital. Although scheduled as a "drive through", it turned into a stop when the visitors wanted to see more.
The JDA's manager for planning and strategy, Yael Horowitz, gave a detailed account of the project, which aims to turn the area into a key transport and commerce hub.
An amount of about R100-million has been allocated for the project, which is to be completed in five phases. Phase 3, a transport holding facility, is under way and is expected to be completed by August.
The whole Baralink project should be completed by the end of 2006.
Other visits in Soweto included the Walter Sisulu Square of Dedication in Kliptown, where the Freedom Charter was signed, the Hector Pieterson Memorial, and Nelson Mandela's house in Orlando West.
Inspecting developments at the Walter Sisulu Square of Dedication in Kliptown
Heritage
Also on board the tour bus was the director of the City's department of arts, culture and heritage, Steven Sack, who spoke passionately about the township's heritage and the museums that held memories of the past for future generations.
Sack said the area had much to offer in terms of heritage and culture, but it had to be developed and promoted more vigorously to attract more visitors.
A major challenge was making space for formal retail as well as parking for tourists. "When apartheid planners built Soweto, they did not make provision for commercial or industrial activity."
The group stopped for lunch at Nambitha's, a restaurant within the proposed Vilakazi Street precinct, the only street to have been home to two Nobel Peace Prize winners - Mandela and Archbishop emeritus Desmond Tutu.
Seated inside the modern restaurant, Sack remarked that they could be in trendy Melville or Greenside. Many in the group said they would like to return with their friends.
Inner city
After lunch it was back to the CBD, with the bus passing through the
Newtown Cultural Precinct, and the
Brickfields housing project. Horowitz pointed out that Brickfields was the first high-rise residential development within the inner city in more than three decades.
Interest in Brickfields' flats had been such that there were inquiries about letting opportunities long before the Johannesburg Housing Company placed advertisements.
Continuing on its journey, the tour bus travelled through Braamfontein. Here the guests were shown the various developments taking place to regenerate and upgrade the area, with support from corporations like Liberty Life, the JD Group and Sappi.
Winding its way up to Constitution Hill, development opportunities were outlined before the bus stopped and the group was taken on a tour of Number Four, one of the prisons in the Old Fort.
The R492-million Constitution Hill forms part of the inner city regeneration project and the cultural arc of Johannesburg, which stretches from Newtown, over the Nelson Mandela Bridge, through Braamfontein up to Constitution Hill.
"Winning the bid to host Constitution Hill was a major coup for the city, as it was competing against sites such as Cape Town," Horowitz said.
"The judges wanted the court to be in a place where it could make a meaningful contribution to improving the fabric of society," she said.
Cornerhouse
Horowitz said it was much easier to garner investment from private companies once representatives had seen the reality of the situation - that the City had fully committed itself to regenerating the inner city and Soweto.
Tour organiser Li Pernegger, the programme manager in the City's finance and economic development unit, saved the best for last.
With dusk approaching, the bus made its way past Main Street, while Bethlehem spoke of moves by the City to regenerate the area with the help of business, before moving on to Cornerhouse.
"Giving property owners some management rights over the public spaces next to their buildings has encouraged development," Pernegger explained. However, the spaces still had to be openly available for public use.
The historical Cornerhouse has undergone many changes over the past century, from a wood and iron shack in 1886 to a two-storey building in 1893 and a seven-storey block in 1904. It has since been declared a national monument.
The visitors were impressed by what property developer Alfonso Botha, of Urban Oceans, had achieved in transforming the decaying old building into a desirable, upmarket place to live.
Cornerhouse was used as the set for the South African version of The Apprentice, the hit reality TV show.
Confident the inner city will regain its past glory, Botha has been converting buildings into loft apartments, with completed ones being sold out in a short space of time.
At the end of the day, Humphrey Borkum, the chairman of the JSE, summed up what the group had experienced. "It's fantastic. It's fabulous to see the City is spending and improving things one might think were dead."
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