Companies / Property Sandton City fully let for the first time in 45 years One of SA’s oldest malls shows there is still life in bricks-and-mortar retail BL PREMIUM

Showing there is still life yet in bricks-and-mortar retail, Sandton City, one of SA’s premier shopping malls is now fully let for the first time, having spent the past three years signing up more luxury brands than any other centre in SA. The 45-year-old super regional centre, which has 147,940m² of retail and leisure space, has zero vacancies, while other superregional centres are averaging 5.8%, according to the SA Property Owners’ Association. Sandton City also includes 51,200m² of office space.

Liberty Two Degrees (L2D) COO Jonathan Sinden said the company spent the first 10 months of 2018 filling 15,000m² of its then vacant retail space, 8,000m² of which had been previously occupied by Stuttafords, which shut down in 2017. Sandton City owners Pareto, Liberty Group and L2D have also brought in a number of pop-up stores and international standalone branches. Metope investment analyst Kelly Ward said the asset managers at L2D had done a “phenomenal job” filling all the va...