Good news about South Africa’s biggest shopping mall

Fourways Mall has announced significant improvements in leasing, foot traffic, and overall retail performance over the last year.

Accelerate Property Fund, which co-owns Fourways Mall with Azrapart, revealed this improvement in a trading update on Monday, 31 March 2025.

Fourways Mall is the largest shopping centre in South Africa, with a gross lettable area (GLA) of over 178,000 square meters and around 350 stores.

It became the largest shopping mall in the country after an extensive expansion and revamp in 2019, which cost north of R1 billion.

The expansion did not work out as planned. From 2021 to 2023, Fourways Mall’s vacancy rate increased from 3% to 8%, and net rent per square meter declined from R298 to R262.

Its fair value declined from R9.6 billion in 2020 to R8.04 billion three years later, and its performance continued to deteriorate.

Accelerate was forced to take drastic action. It embarked on a turnaround plan and partnered with Flanagan & Gerard as asset managers and Moolman Group as the property managers.

It invested in improved signage and security, introduced new tenants, installed backup power, optimised traffic flow, enlarged parking bays, and revitalised the surrounding area.

The latest trading update showed that the turnaround strategy is starting to show results, with a significant improvement.

Fourways Mall demonstrated a strong upwards trajectory, closing the 2024 calendar year with significant gains in leasing, foot traffic and overall retail performance.

The shopping mall’s festive season trade reinforced its growth, with a 9.5% increase in total spend compared to the previous year.

“The independent retail experts, Flanagan & Gerard and Moolman Group, have significantly impacted lease renewals,” Accelerate said.

They attracted new tenants and shoppers to the Mall and renewed 121 leases totalling 46,972 square meters of gross lettable area (GLA) for an average of 4.2 years.

Strong letting activity and extensions reduced the mall’s vacancies from 19.0% in the prior financial year to 13.4% for the year under review.

“Further new leases with a combined GLA of 27,515 square meters have been concluded to date or are in the process of being concluded,” Accelerate said.

Accelerate Property Fund and Azrapart invested approximately R144 million in Fourways Mall in the year under review.

This investment has mainly been allocated towards enhancing the overall shopper experience, focusing on lighting, signage, ingress and egress, security, and waterproofing.

A significant portion of the mall’s planned capital spending will be applied to a 50,000-square-foot roof structure on the upper-level parking deck.

This will be followed by the installation of a 6 megawatt solar plant at a total cost of R222.4 million.

Fourways Mall