Smaller cities join shopping spree frenzy

10-04-2007

Developers clearly expect South Africans to continue shopping like crazy if the 637.294m² in retail floor space to be completed during 2007 — which is some 20% up on 2006 — is anything to go by. This is according to the latest Rode’s Retail Report.

An interesting fact is that a large portion of these new shopping centres will be (or are) located in small towns, economically ‘marginal’ provinces or townships.

So, for instance, Mooi River Mall (38.000m²) will open in Potchefstroom this year, and so will Highveld Mall (20.000m²) in Witbank, North Cape Mall (15.500m²) in the Northern Cape, and The Village (25.000m²) in Klerksdorp. Other notable developments that will hit the market in 2007 are the Maponya Mall (58.500m²) in Soweto and Tembisa Mall (12.000m²) in Tembisa.

In the past, developers of large shopping centres generally focused on the more affluent locations in metropolitan areas. However, a rapidly growing black middle class and dwindling opportunities in the upmarket parts of the country have forced them to consider opportunities that ten years ago would not even have registered on their radar.

“The fact that the marginal locations are taking greater prominence in developers’ decisions is also consistent with my theory that growth starts in the major cities and gradually radiates out to locations on the periphery,” says Erwin Rode, CEO of Rode & Associates. “This is consistent with the theory that wealth generation starts at the top of society and then trickles down. Evidence of this is the growth in job opportunities that is now at long last taking place.”