{"id":851723,"date":"2026-02-21T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=851723"},"modified":"2026-02-20T17:19:56","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T15:19:56","slug":"major-shopping-mall-in-south-africa-completely-empty-after-last-shop-standing-closes-its-doors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/property\/851723\/major-shopping-mall-in-south-africa-completely-empty-after-last-shop-standing-closes-its-doors\/","title":{"rendered":"Major shopping mall in South Africa completely empty after last shop standing closes its doors"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Lancaster Centre in Johannesburg is now standing completely empty after its last shop\u2014a speciality hobby store\u2014closed down in December 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lancaster Shopping Centre<\/a>, located on Jan Smuts Avenue in Craighall, is within a 10km radius of Hyde Park, Sandhurst, and Craighall, putting it in one of the prime spots in South Africa’s richest city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shopping mall previously built a reputation for convenience and accessibility, serving the surrounding community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also previously featured anchor tenants like Pick\u2019n Pay and Planet Fitness, along with various eateries and speciality shops. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lancaster Shopping Centre lost two of its anchor tenants, Pick n Pay and Planet Fitness. The latter had a high-end gym in the centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March 2024, Pick \u2018n Pay permanently closed its store in the centre as part of its turnaround strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pick \u2018n Pay had been an anchor tenant in the shopping mall for decades, the loss of which dealt a significant blow to the property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 2025, only one shop was left standing: Top Deck, which specialises in collectable card games, such as Magic: The Gathering, and other gaming products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Top Deck opened its physical store at the mall in 2019, but by December 2025, mall security confirmed it, too, had closed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The physical and online stores for Top Deck both closed in December 2025 without a public notice. By February 2025, the group’s Facebook page had also been delisted and was no longer available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the closure, no stores remain in the Lancaster Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fieldspace Property Group, the owner of the four-storey shopping centre, refurbished the facility in 2022 in an attempt to revitalise its aesthetic and appeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, without a major anchor tenant like the big retailers that occupied the space before, the mall struggled to maintain its draw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fieldspace is now exploring redevelopment opportunities for the building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe welcome redevelopment opportunities, joint ventures or leasing proposals from large anchor tenants interested in occupying the entire building,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Lancaster<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The Lancaster Centre in Johannesburg is now standing completely empty after its last shop\u2014a speciality hobby store\u2014closed down in December 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":851744,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12755],"tags":[24817,24816],"class_list":["post-851723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-property","tag-fieldspace-property","tag-lancaster-centre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851723","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851723"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":851748,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851723\/revisions\/851748"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/851744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}