Companies / Property JOHANNESBURG Joburg inner city project may bring investors back Mayor Herman Mashaba likens the property opportunity offered by Johannesburg’s inner city to the ‘second discovery of gold’ BL PREMIUM

A R2bn project backed by RMH and Nedbank could kick-start the return of large corporations who deserted Johannesburg’s inner city in the 1990s, accelerating its decay, says mayor Herman Mashaba. While certain parts of the inner city have been rejuvenated, largely in the lead-up to the 2010 Soccer World Cup, many sections are suffering from poor infrastructure, bad spatial planning, inadequate transport links, a lack of new businesses doing trade and crime. Speaking at the launch of the Divercity Urban Property Fund in Newtown on Wednesday, Mashaba likened the property opportunity offered by the inner city to the "second discovery of gold. I believe that this project can be the start of something which sees the private sector commit to the city again. "We are going to make Johannesburg great again. In the past, government worked against the private sector in the inner city, but this is changing." Divercity is a new real estate group backed by institutional money, which is committed t...