The first phase of the Melrose Arch mixed-use development opened in Johannesburg in 2001, more than 20 years ago. Since then, the concept of a city-within-a-city has gained traction, with the idea of living, playing and working in the same space now a much more familiar idea in South Africa.

The newest urban area to gain such a development is Cape Town, as the Amdec Group rolls out the R16-billion Harbour Arch project within the city bowl.

Amdec Property Developments MD Nicholas Stopforth says Amdec’s strategy with Harbour Arch is much the same as was the case with Melrose Arch in Johannesburg.

“It is about creating an urban community in a walkable mixed-use precinct that is safe and secure, with retail, office, residential and hotel offerings.”

Despite the similarity in development principles, Harbour Arch will, however, differ significantly from Melrose Arch. Much of this has to do with its size and location.

Melrose Arch is in suburban Johannesburg, while Harbour Arch is located within Cape Town’s rather cramped city centre, which means it is notably more restricted in terms of space.

Melrose Arch is also about 500 000 m2 in developable bulk, while Harbour Arch is roughly 200 000 m2. In terms of size, Melrose Arch encompasses 20 ha, and Harbour Arch only 6 ha.

Consequently, the Harbour Arch towers are all high-rise buildings, while Melrose Arch’s buildings are limited in height.

The first Harbour Arch tower, which is currently racing towards completion, tops out at 23 floors.

“We have six towers in our masterplan. They will all be high-rise buildings with a mixture of uses,” notes Stopforth.

On completion, it is envisaged that the Harbour Arch precinct will accommodate various commercial offices and corporate headquarters; an urban park and shopping galleria at street level; an eighth-floor piazza lined with restaurants, coffee shops and cocktails bars; two Marriott-branded hotels with conferencing facilities; a health and fitness club; and a large selection of residential apartments.

As is the case with Melrose Arch, Harbour Arch will also have a super basement linking all the buildings together.

This basement for Tower 1 has three levels and has been designed to allow for flexible use such as for car dealerships, while the two levels below that will offer standard parking.

The start of construction on future towers is market driven, but the Amdec Group has the plans at the ready to commence work when the time is ready, adds Stopforth.

“The aim is to complete Tower 1 and smartly thereafter we’ll get going with Tower 2.

“It makes life much easier when you have something to show the consumer, as will be the case when Tower 1 is completed.”

Construction Challenges
Harbour Arch’s Tower 1 has already produced its own set of unique construction challenges to main contractor Wilson Bailey Holmes-Ovcon.

“We had an 11 m bulk earthworks operation and lateral support,” explains Stopforth.

“And, of course, being quite close to the coast and Table Mountain, you have a lot of water ingress and freshwater runoff from the mountain side. Also, it being Cape Town, wind is a challenge when working at height and 2022 was a record year for wind strength, as I understand.”

Tower 1 is scheduled for completion in May next year.

With roughly seven months to go till completion, 50 000 m3 of concrete, six-million bricks, 4 500 t of steel reinforcement, 150 km of joint sealant, and 13 301 panes of glass have been used in the construction of Tower 1.

It has also taken about three- million work hours to reach the twenty-third floor.

When completed, Harbour Arch Tower 1 will comprise double-volume glass-fronted retail space at ground level, earmarked for motor dealerships and coffee shops, and further retail space on the eighth floor, which will house restaurants with indoor and outdoor seating.

It will also include 1 188 parking bays across three basement and seven above-ground levels.

There is also an open-air sundeck and swimming pool on the eighteenth floor, offering scenic views of Table Mountain and the harbour.

As one can imagine with a high-rise building, the handover process, once construction is wrapped up, will have to be carefully coordinated and staggered to get all owners and tenants in as quickly as possible, notes Stopforth.

Affordable Housing
Harbour Arch has introduced affordable housing to the residential mix, a feature absent in most mixed-use property developments in South Africa.

Tower 1 has a total of 478 apartments, ranging from one-bedroom units to three- bedroom units, but also 82 so-called ‘inclusionary’ apartments – or, more simply put, affordable housing units.

“There was no obligation on Amdec to provide affordable housing in Harbour Arch,” says Stopforth.

“However, we have made the decision to provide affordable housing in Tower 1, and we’ll continue to roll this out in the balance of the towers as we progress with the development.

“By providing affordable housing, we would like to make a small dent in South Africa’s significant housing crisis.”

All the inclusionary apartments in Harbour Arch will be rental units and will remain Amdec’s property. This will ensure that the units remain affordable.

“We want to provide affordable accommodation to people who work in the precinct – restaurant or hotel staff, whatever the case may be,” says Stopforth.

“The definition of affordable is that housing expenses cannot cost you more than 30% of your combined income, with the maximum monthly income to qualify for ‘affordable housing’ set at R22 500 a month. So this is the range within which we’ll work to facilitate the uptake of these units.”

That Unfinished Freeway…
Apart from Table Mountain and a number of beautiful vistas, Cape Town is also famous for its unfinished freeway, which stops rather unceremoniously mid-air as one enters the city from Paarl.

This incomplete freeway ‘hugs’ the Harbour Arch development, so to speak.

“What we have done in rolling out Harbour Arch is to refrain from any development that will impede on the city now, or in the future, from doing something with that freeway, including burying it in the ground,” says Stopforth.

“As we understand it, there is a strong movement to actually take that freeway to ground level and create a tunnel through to the V&A waterfront.

“If we opted to extend our superbasement to underneath the freeway, it would have restricted the city’s choices, which is why we decided against such a development.”

Homelessness
As with many other cities in South Africa, homelessness has seen a sharp increase during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Cape Town then also struggles with tented communities that have sprung up across the city in open plots, next to freeways and roads, and under bridges.

Is this not impeding the allure of the Cape Town CBD as a residential node?

“The Cape Town CBD is probably the CBD offering the most viable development opportunities in South Africa,” says Stopforth.

“There are also a lot of consumers out there who believe that Cape Town still offers real investment opportunities.

“We are not blind to the challenges the city faces, including homelessness, but we believe that this is a blip in time, considering the pandemic we just went through, and that things will return to normal,” he notes.

“We are very positive about the future of Cape Town, and we do believe that the property sector in South Africa remains alive and well.”

Apart from Harbour Arch, Amdec is building 125 houses at Sitari Country Estate, in Somerset West.

Evergreen, a retirement lifestyle brand co-owned by the Amdec Group, is also constructing a 440-unit retirement village in the estate.

In addition, Amdec is developing 177 houses at Westbrook, in Gqeberha, and completing a concept design in Melrose Arch comprising 50 000 m2 of mixed-use.