The value of new investments announced in Cape Town’s central business district (CBD) has exceeded R3,049-billion for the six months to June 2003, the Cape Town Partnership confirmed on Monday.
The Partnership, formed in mid-1999 to rejuvenate central Cape Town for business and residential investment through a series of improvement districts, also said that the cumulative value of projects completed, planned or under way had reached R5,8-billion since the Partnership’s formation and some R11,5-billion over a five-year period.
The Partnership had set a target of R1-billion for the entire 2003 calendar year, with a cumulative target of R10,1-billion either planned or under way by the end of 2003.
The total investment for the six months was made up of the capital value of new leases (R84-million), new developments (R1.9-billion), new purchases (R192-million) and upgrades and renewals (R889-million), bringing the total to R3,049-billion.
Notable investments included a number of leisure industry projects, inner-
city residential conversions, new developments at the Port of Cape Town and in
the Roggebaai Canal Tourism Precinct.
Of the new developments since January 2000, some R4,7-billion had or would be in construction, sustaining over 29 000 jobs over the period, 4 000 of which were associated with the new Convention Centre on the foreshore. Indirect jobs created — mostly in leisure and retail — for the entire period since the Partnership’s formation had been estimated as roughly double the figures for jobs sustained in construction.
The University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business’s Barry Standish said that this inner city spend had, over the 42-month period, contributed just over 1% of the entire provincial GDP. ”This is a significant contribution especially when the multiplied impact of this spending is taken into account.”
Cape Town Partnership CEO Michael Farr said it was ”entirely appropriate” that the Cape Town CBD was finally getting what it deserved.
”It is arguably one of the most important areas in South Africa socially, politically, and economically. Apart from the fact that it is historically and culturally the oldest and most cosmopolitan city in South Africa, the CBD has about 240 000 commuter movements every day, generates over R80-million in rates every year, constitutes over 20% of the economic turnover of the whole metropolitan area and provides over a quarter of all jobs in metropolitan Cape Town. – I-Net Bridge