{"id":846385,"date":"2025-12-21T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=846385"},"modified":"2025-12-19T21:28:52","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T19:28:52","slug":"south-africas-largest-landlord-building-bridges-to-the-nations-richest-shopping-mall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/property\/846385\/south-africas-largest-landlord-building-bridges-to-the-nations-richest-shopping-mall\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s largest landlord building bridges to the nation’s richest shopping mall"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

South Africa\u2019s biggest landlord, Growthpoint Properties, has built a bridge from its Sandton offices to Sandton City Shopping Centre. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growthpoint Properties is South Africa\u2019s largest real-estate investment trust, with a market cap of R57 billion. It owns significant stakes in several major buildings, including the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company has now opened the Sandton Drive Link Bridge, a R26 million infrastructure bridge, which offers pedestrian access between\u00a0Growthpoint\u2019s The Place at 1 Sandton Drive and the Sandton City shopping centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, Growthpoint\u2019s head office is located at The Place, 1 Sandton Drive, which also houses AON, Bank of America, and several other high-profile companies.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bridge is designed not only to enhance convenience for tenants of The Place, but also to facilitate more effortless pedestrian movement through Sandton Central. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The move also aims to provide street-level pedestrian access convenient for those accessing the services of the U.S. Consulate, which neighbours The Place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bridge was developed in close partnership with Sandton City, the Sandton Central Management District and the City of Johannesburg. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSandton Drive Link Bridge is a safe crossing that stands as a beacon to the persistence and partnerships that got this project across the line,\u201d says Estienne de Klerk, SA CEO of Growthpoint Properties. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThank you to everyone who believed in this vision and made it a reality. This is an investment that will benefit countless people for many years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growhtpoint said that the bridge underscores its continued investment in its core portfolio, driven by active asset management and a commitment to precinct-led value creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve enhanced the value and positioning of The Place while improving the safety and experience of everyone moving through this important node,\u201d said Timothy Irvine, Head of Asset Management: Offices at Growthpoint. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Constructed with a focus on durability, safety and design, the bridge features stainless steel balustrades, a glass-covered viewing deck, and lighting that adds a dynamic presence to the Sandton skyline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growthpoint said that it will continue to invest heavily in Sandton Central, owning the Towers in Alice Lane, the Discovery head office, and the upcoming mixed-use development Olympus Sandton.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notably, Sandton City itself is actually owned by Liberty and Pareto. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandton City <\/strong>boom<\/h2>\n\n\n
\n
\"\"<\/a>
Estienne de Klerk, SA CEO of Growthpoint Properties<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Sandton City<\/a> is the fourth-largest shopping mall in South Africa with 148,000 sqm of GLA, and is associated with wealth due to its location.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mall ranks below only the Gateway Theatre of Shopping, uMhlanga, Menlyn Mall in Pretoria, and the country\u2019s largest centre, Fourways Mall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the last couple of years have been incredibly challenging for retailers and shopping centre owners, Sandton City has now achieved near-perfect occupancy, with only 0.1% of its space vacant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mall said that the near-perfect milestone was achieved thanks to a \u201cdeliberate repositioning journey\u201d, which entailed rightsizing some retailers, such as Edgars, and curating its tenant mix to appeal to target customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sandton City has concluded 50 new leasing deals and facilitated 46 store upgrades over the last two years, representing more than 30,000 square metres of lettable space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The centre\u2019s trading density also grew by 12.1% over the same period, outperforming national benchmarks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vacancy rates also improved from 3.6% in January 2025 to just 0.1% in October 2025, reflecting the appetite for space among both local and international retailers at the mall. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
The Sandton Drive Link Bridge<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Growthpoint Properties has built a R26 million bridge between its head office and Sandton City. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":844587,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12755],"tags":[12043,12128],"class_list":["post-846385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-property","tag-growthpoint","tag-sandton-city"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846385"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":846685,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846385\/revisions\/846685"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}