{"id":863179,"date":"2026-06-10T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=863179"},"modified":"2026-06-10T16:24:01","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T14:24:01","slug":"south-africas-new-shopping-mall-capital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/property\/863179\/south-africas-new-shopping-mall-capital\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa’s new shopping mall capital"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Western Cape malls continue to dominate trading densities, even as Gauteng saw higher growth rates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is according to the latest Clur Shopping Centre Index, which covers 5.4 million sqm across listed and unlisted property funds in South Africa and Namibia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Belinda Clur, managing director of Clur International, said the first quarter of 2026 reflected ongoing resilience in the retail property sector. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The index covers 5.4 million sqm across listed and unlisted property funds in South Africa and Namibia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSector resilience in the first quarter was supported by ongoing trading density and base rental growth,\u201d said Belinda Clur. Growth shifts across formats and provinces were significant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Q1 2026 national Clur Index for All Centres closed at an annualised trading density of R43,340\/sqm, and y\/y% growth of 5.2%, outperforming Mar 2026\u2019s CPI by 2.1 percentage points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were differing views on trading density growth across the three key provinces, with Gauteng overtaking the Western Cape to take the top spot at 5.6% y\/y.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Western Cape was at 5.2% and KZN at 4.4% y\/y growth. Provincial trading density volumes continued to show Western Cape dominance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, provincial trading density volumes continued to show Western Cape dominance at R50,262\/sqm.<\/strong> KZN followed at R45,278\/sqm, and Gauteng delivered R41,842 \/sqm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Top base rent\/sqm growth came from KZN at 7.1%, off R257.01\/sqm. The highest base rent\/sqm was in the Western Cape, at R269.76 after 5.1% growth. Gauteng was at R245.72\/sqm and 5.4% y\/y.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data broadly reflect qualitative factors over South Africa’s shopping landscape, with more property funds prioritising moves in the Western Cape. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, Hyprop, the owner of Canal Walk and Rosebank, is prioritising the Western Cape due to better municipal infrastructure and higher consumer spending than other provinces. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growthpoint Properties, a co-owner of the V&A Waterfront, has also moved its development capital to the Western Cape. Spear REIT notably only operates in the Western Cape. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bigger is better <\/h2>\n\n\n
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\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cMarking a clear trend shift, the highest y\/y% growth was shown by super-regional centres at 5.6%,” said Clur. Super-regional centres are the largest in South Africa, with GLA of over 100,000 sqm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

February 2026 marked the first time since November 2024 that these centres have outperformed the growth rate of community and smaller centres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRegional centres followed at 5.4%, having seen an ongoing marked growth improvement since April 2025 and drastically improving their placement in the ranks since their low of 2.1% in September 2024.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Community and smaller centres came in at 4.9% y\/y growth, having contracted by 0.5% against December 2025.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Super-regional centres showed the highest growth expansion against December 2025 of 0.7%, followed by small regional centres at 0.2%.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actual trading density volumes continued to be driven by the combination of very large and very small centres. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Top performance came from super-regional areas at R53,225\/sqm, with community and smaller centres seeing R49,131\/sqm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The MD added that the rental position remained steady, with the Q1 2026 index for All Centres closing at a base rent-to-sales level of 6.6%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This has remained unchanged since mid-2024, when the market returned to normalcy following Covid-induced volatility. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clur added that all centre types and key provinces saw inflation-beating rental y\/y growth in March 2026. The index for All Centres closed at a base rent per sqm of R246.21. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This represented year-on-year growth of 5.5%, outperforming the March 2026 CPI of 3.1% by 2.4 percentage points. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Super-regional centres recorded the highest base rental levels at R333.88\/sqm, with y\/y growth of 5.9%, exceeding March 2026 CPI by 2.8 percentage points. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regionals came in at R239.87, up 4.9% y\/y and outpacing CPI by 1.8 percentage points. Small regional centres recorded the second-highest y\/y% growth in base rent\/sqm at 5.7%, achieving R195.21\/sqm.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Q1 Annualised Trading Data (Source: Clur International)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n
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While shopping malls in Gauteng have seen the best growth in their trading density, the Western Cape is still king. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":850232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12755],"tags":[19607],"class_list":["post-863179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-property","tag-clur-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863179","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=863179"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":863319,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863179\/revisions\/863319"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/850232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}