November 14, 2002
By Lucille Davie
TRENDY loft apartments in the city centre? Yes, it's happening. An enterprising estate agent advertised in the weekend's papers for buyers of 10 loft apartments, and got an 88% higher response rate than normal.
An excited Spencer Davis, agent with a large property agency, says that in the 3-4 days since the advert was placed he has confirmation of the sale of three of the 10 apartments.
Although Davis won't disclose where the building is in the city centre, he says it is an old industrial building of five storeys, south of the CBD near the M1.
"It's a small niche market for the trendy type who consist of attorneys, advertising and arty types, even students, both black and white, who are happy to buy a shell and convert it into very attractive living space," he says.
Davis says he hopes this will be like the explosion of loft apartments in New York some years ago. Several Johannesburg suburbs went through the similar metamorphosis of trendiness: Melville, Norwood and Parkhurst, starting with a few people moving in and renovating old houses.
The city loft apartments are going for around R160 000-R200 000 before renovation. He estimates it will take around R30 000 to make them livable, and they could fetch R6 000 if rented out. Each unit consists of 350 square metres.
By comparison, loft apartments in the luxury northern suburb of Sandown are selling for R850 000 for 143 square metres. Placed in the same weekend paper, there's only two apartments remaining of an original 28. And they haven't even been built yet.
Davis' building will be transformed into mixed space with offices and residential units combined, and perhaps a coffee bar on the ground floor.
Davis is confident that people will move into the CBD. "It will work - I feel it in my bones," he enthuses.
Parking is available under the building, and Davis hopes to secure the services of inner city guards to patrol the building.
There are other developers in the market. Gerald Olitzki, inner city property developer, is buying shuttered-up office blocks and restoring them to A-grade office space. He has bought several blocks around Gandhi Square, and converted the original caretakers' flats on the roof of the buildings to penthouse apartments.
"I have just found tenants for two apartments - they were snapped up by yuppies," he says. There is tremendous demand for this space, he adds.
City rooftop dweller Richard Yell, who lives on the 19th storey converted flat in Anchor Towers in Plein Street and has an attractive rooftop garden, endorses the idea of people moving into loft apartments in the city. He cites a building in Quinn Street in Newtown, where a corporate head office has been successfully converted into apartments.
He is presently working together with a number of colleagues to convert an industrial building in the city into 34 units, 10 of which will be for sale, the rest for rent, ranging in size from 96 to 350 square metres, with a price tag of between R100 000 and R350 000.
Richard Yell in his rooftop garden in Anchor Towers
Yell says that there are other developments just outside the CBD in Doornfontein. Six large loft units have been created in a building in End Street.
Yell confirms that it is the creative industry that leads the way in these trendy developments, and "the rest will follow".
Fellow city dweller Susan Gillam, who moved into the city 18 months ago, and lives on the 20th floor of Ansteys Towers in Joubert Street, describes how she has been transformed by living in the city.
"Living in the city has changed me for the better - I have become extremely humble and compassionate, and I have grown to love the city even more," she exclaims.
She puts this down to the "amazing community" she lives in, where she has developed "a respect for the African way of doing things". She is a member of the body corporate in the block she lives in and they have done remarkable things.
"We found that the company who were managing the building were not paying the rates from the rent they received. We fired them and now run the building ourselves. We have brought the arrears up to date, undertaken repairs and restoration to the building, and have reversed the redlining of the building that prevented people getting bonds for flats," she says.
Overcrowding in the building has also been dealt with. Levies were charged to tenants who were overfilling their flats and they soon expelled the extra occupants.
Gillam explains that few of her friends visit her because they fear for their safety in the inner city. But even that is changing for her, in a most positive way.
"I have found a man who wasn't scared to come into town and date me. He overcame his fear and his desire to visit and take me out was his strongest motivating factor," she says happily.
Interested in a loft apartment?
Contact Spencer Davis on 072 490 5130 for an appointment to view an inner city apartment.
