{"id":876943,"date":"2026-10-04T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=876943"},"modified":"2026-10-02T16:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T14:52:09","slug":"the-mall-with-the-most-shops-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/876943\/the-mall-with-the-most-shops-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"The mall with the most shops in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Menlyn Park Shopping Centre in Pretoria currently holds the record for the most stores, despite being only the second-largest mall in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mall has approximately 177,000 square metres of gross lettable area, far higher than many others in South Africa, but still behind Fourways Mall, which has 178,000 square metres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Construction on Menlyn Mall started in 1979, and it was originally a far smaller retail centre before it underwent several expansions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The initial construction was funded by Old Mutual Properties to serve the growing population in Pretoria East.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pretoria East region continued to grow after the mall’s initial construction, prompting an expansion plan for the shopping centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This expansion was spearheaded by BILD Architects, who took on the project to accommodate the increased foot traffic in the mall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A second renovation came a decade later, when Development Design Group \u2013 an American design firm \u2013 partnered with the shopping centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2000, Menlyn Mall underwent another change with an R800 million redevelopment to expand its floor space and the number of stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This overhaul of the shopping centre increased its floor area to roughly 118,000 square metres, accommodating 300 stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This renovation was considered groundbreaking by several groups and was acclaimed for its innovations and use of a large tent-like structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the large-scale 2000 redevelopment of Menlyn Park Shopping Centre, it was not the biggest overhaul the mall experienced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between 2014 and 2016, the mall underwent a major refurbishment by Pareto, a property investment firm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This expansion cost approximately R2.5 billion and was completed in two stages to expand Menlyn Mall to its current 177,000 square metres of gross lettable area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The renovation involved converting areas previously earmarked for hosting events into a food court and adding a dedicated fashion section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Pareto, the current owners of Menlyn Mall, the shopping centre has 434 stores, with anchor tenants including Woolworths, Checkers, and H&M.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Menlyn Park Shopping Centre also briefly held the record for being the largest mall in South Africa after the renovations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa’s largest mall<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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While Menlyn Park was briefly the largest shopping centre, the expansion project at Fourways Mall saw it take the crown in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The expansion project saw the 32-year-old mall grow to 178,000 square metres of gross lettable area, 1,000 more than Menlyn Mall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite having a larger gross lettable area, Fourways has approximately 350 stores according to its website, far fewer than Menlyn Park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fourways Mall is located in the northern part of Johannesburg and was built to serve the growing residential population in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Fourways Mall has been in the heart of the northern suburbs for over 23 years. The Mall was the first of its kind in the area, built to cater for suburbia in the North of Johannesburg,” Fourways Mall said on its website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“September 2019 saw the launch of the expanded Fourways Mall \u2013 now the largest in South Africa at approximately 178 000m\u00b2 of gross lettable area.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mall’s expansion saw several changes for the shopping centre, including improved parking access and the inclusion of several stores and entertainment areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fourways Mall is also currently going through another change, with construction underway on a new luxury restaurant attached to the centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce completed, the R100 million adjacency will further define the Fourways precinct, anchored by the mall,\u201d strategic asset manager for Fourways Mall, Flanagan & Gerard, said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The development aims to capitalise on the high-end dining sector in the Fourways area and will feature sweeping views of the surrounding neighbourhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photos of Menlyn Mall<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Photos of Fourways Mall<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Menlyn Mall holds the title for having the most stores of any shopping centre in South Africa, despite not being the biggest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":861913,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2106716228534325288","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2226164348203964","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18121200574895748","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[19939,19746,25944,24664],"class_list":["post-876943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-flanagan-gerard","tag-fourways-mall","tag-menlyn-mall","tag-pareto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876943","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\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=876943"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876943\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":877042,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876943\/revisions\/877042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/861913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=876943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=876943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=876943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}