SAPOA Vacancies; Launch JHT & JDA Citichat 15 February 2002

Citichat 6/2002 - 15 February 2002


SAPOA Vacancies/ Launch JHT and JDA

So Rudi Guilliani is an honourary knight, pity he can't use his title, "SIRUDI OF MANHATTAN" has a certain ring to it!

Back to Johannesburg and a busy couple of weeks it has been. Here are some selected ‘happenings and highlights’.

Latest Office Vacancy Survey (for December 2001) published by SAPOA reflects the following:

Braamfontein vacancies are 10.8% (A-grade) and 15.4% (B-grade) averaging 12.7% which is an increase over the previous 3 months of 9.1% and 12.2% respectively which averaged 10.3%. Not a trend as the comparative average 9 months ago was 13% and the figures are not a train-smash.

CBD A- and B-grade average vacancies have risen by 0.1% (24.1 from 24.0 three months ago and 23.6 nine months ago) which, whilst high, reflects a stable situation but there is some good news on the horizon, see later.

Local comparative average A- and B-grade vacancies (December 2001) are:

Hyde Park/Dunkeld 32.8: Illovo 7.9: Midrand 6,6: Parktown 19.8: Randburg 12.4: Rivonia 15.0 : Rosebank 12.0: Sandton 12.8.

National comparative averages :CBD Cape Town 15.9: CBD Durban 22.5: CBD Pretoria 11.9

Talking of SAPOA, they organised a panel discussion on the 6th Feb "The Johannesburg CBD in five year's time" which provided a valuable contribution to the ongoing debate regarding the Inner City. Conversations such as this, particularly with an organisation which represents the major property holders and institutions in the country, are important. The discussions certainly put some issues on the table that have generally been unsaid in public but SAPOA will be printing a resume of the session so I won't pre-empt them. Six panelists representing academe, local government, institutional owners and myself (as someone involved in the broader picture on a day-to-day basis) provided five year scenarios before a general conversation with the floor took place. I prepared a written five year scenario which I didn't quite get to deliver as written as I allowed myself to be somewhat sidetracked by comments of other panelists but the 'meat’ of my scenario was as follows:

"We will be a safe city where city users do not feel threatened in any way. We will be a city whose diverse community has pride in their city; we will have good urban spaces that are well used and adequately maintained. The city will accommodate a small number of major private corporations and a large public sector presence and a very large number of small businesses. There will be a substantial residential community, mainly a mix of low and middle income but ultimately a higher income component – the latter possibly not in the scenario period. There will be a number of well-defined specialist precincts - cultural/sport/education/fashion/jewelery and high-tech each of which will support an increasing number of small entrepreneurial companies.

The majority of informal traders will operate from informal trading markets housed in new or existing buildings but with well-defined and well-managed linear markets to retain the African flavour of the city. Formal retail will continue to serve the predominantly lower and middle income markets. Combi-taxis will be ranked in specially constructed ranking facilities or converted parking garages. Informal trading, taxis and residential will be integrated in multi-use projects.”

Other ‘happenings’.

First meetings of 2002 of the Johannesburg Inner City Business Coalition (JICBC), the Johannesburg Heritage Trust (JHT) and the Inner City Section 79 Committee. Highlight from the JICBC meeting was the news that the Road Accident Fund is re-locating to the city from Randburg (11 000 sq metres) and that a tender has just closed for 34 000 sq metres of office space in the CBD for the Receiver of Revenue.

But the two weeks wasn’t all work. Two noteworthy social occasions took place, the joint launch of the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) and the Johannesbutrg Heritage Trust (JHT) on Thursday 7th February. The rain forced the planned street party in front of JHT’s building at 90 Market Street into the City Hall but a great time was had by all. Something that made a big impact on me was the dozen or so hostesses who directed participants to the venue and then looked after guests at the tables. These really beautiful young women wore contemporary design ethnic dresses from a number of the ethnic groupings in South Africa. They could only be described as STUNNING! I couldn’t but feel quite elated at how their presence complemented the Edwardian/neo-Classical grandeur and elegance of the City Hall, a blending of our colonial past with our free and democratic present.

During the course of the evening, in my address on the founding of the Johannesburg Heritage Trust, I had stressed the importance of maintaining what little was left of the city’s historic built environment “if we are to pass on to our children a city which recognises its history, as painful as that history might be for many of our citizens….a city with no history and no heritage will have no memories and no soul and it is the city’s soul from which its community must be nurtured.” Underscoring the issue of the importance of memories, I was able to make a somewhat ‘unusual’ presentation to our Executive Mayor, Cllr Amos Masondo, thanks to Beata Lipman. Beata and her daughter Jane produced the CJP film “Johannesburg, the struggle for a City” through their company ‘Current Affairs Films’. In 1985, during one of the country’s many “states of emergency” Beata, then living in exile in the UK, returned to South Africa to do some under-cover filming for the BBC. A strike of tyre workers was taking place in Johannesburg and the strike leaders had gathered in Chancellor House (the building that once housed the legal practice of “Tambo and Mandela”) and Beata filmed the proceedings. She came across the secret 1985 filming when she was reviewing her archives for the CJP film and recognised one of the Trade Union organisers ( she described him as ‘a handsome young man’), as our Executive Mayor. I was thus able to present him with a tape prepared by Beata as a ‘memory’ of that event.

On Monday of this week a street party that did happen on the street, celebrated the Chinese New Year (we are now in the Year of the Horse) as well as the official launch of the Johannesburg First Chinatown Association which will be an important roleplayer in the revitalisation plans for the city’s Chinatown which I covered some weeks ago. It was a great evening with the traditional lion dance followed by a truly spectacular fireworks display. Lots of people on the street, lots of fun.

Have a good weekend, regards,



neil



P.S. It’s always good to receive comment on Citichat, good or bad, as it does mean that someone is reading them! Here is just some of the input received on Citichats 2 and 3/2002 in respect of Chinatown and the City Hall/Legislature Building:



1. I called Eric Itzkin’s book on Ganhdi ‘inciteful’ which was clearly a Freudian slip, it is of course ‘insightful’!



2. The City Hall was designed by the Cape Town architectural practice of Hawke and McKinlay and their design was chosen from over forty different designs received following an invitation from the Town Council in 1910 and was not designed by Sir Edward Luytens! A Sir Edwin Luytens designed the Art Gallery in Joubert Park and the Rand Regiments Memorial in the Zoo grounds.



3. Whilst I mentioned Marcus Holmes as leading the professional team on the 1994 refurbishment of the Eastern half of the City Hall into accommodation for the Gauteng Provincial Legislature I omitted to mention that the work was the responsibility of the architectural practice of Fassler Kamstra Holmes.



4. Gauteng did not succeed the Transvaal but rather the PWV Province (which succeeded the Transvaal) and the name change was effected after the seat of Government was announced.



5. The Director:Operational Support for the Gauteng Provincial Legislature has taken issue with my comment that the sale price of the City Hall building was “unrealistically low” pointing out that “whilst the building may have historical value, there is no way that it can be run at a commercial operating profit – let alone pay back the capital expenditure needed to turn it into a marketable building”.



6. In the early 1900s Indians were evidently allowed into the Transvaal only if they could write their names. As a result Gandhi and his friend and supporter Hermann Kallenbach sat at a table a mile from the border teaching those coming through how to write their names!