Menlyn, a residential suburb of Pretoria, is receiving a facelift that will fast-track its development from being a predominantly single-storey suburb to a multistorey area of apartments and office blocks.

The development started some 20 years ago and will be fast-tracked by the city council’s newly approved spatial develop- ment framework (SDF).

Further underpinning the revitalisation of Menlyn is the new R2.6-billion bus rapid transit system. Construction of Phase 1 will start in April 2014 and the system will be a cost-effective transport link between Menlyn and the suburbs of Sunnyside, Akasia and Hatfield.

The SDF aims to promote vertical resi- dential development and densification in the area, hence, the wave of high-rise con- struction in the residential and commercial sectors. Single-storey houses are not as financially viable as multiple-storey buildings, hence the trend by developers and investors to buy old houses for land value and demolish them to make way for high-rise apartment and office buildings, explains Harcourts Capital owner and co-principal Dennis Hamer.

He says that developers want to capitalise on the need for apartment living in all price brackets, though vacant land is scarce.

A 5 600 m2 plot in Matroosberg road that has the rights in place for a 61-apartment block and is on the market for R7-million, has attracted interest.

A new 13 000 m2 Podium Office Block was fully let within two weeks of its launch. The site has easy access to the recently upgraded Garsfontein/N1 interchange and is therefore a good investment opportunity.
A 26 000 m2 site is earmarked for the development of a twenty-storey building that will comprise a hotel, upmarket resi- dential apartments and A-grade offices. Aimed at the higher income group, the Menlyn Towers will have the look of the Michelangelo Hotel, in Sandton.
“There is an increasing percentage of people working from home who want to relocate to more professional work pre- mises. They can buy 100 m2 of space for R15 000/ m2 to R18 000/m2, compared with serviced A-grade office space that rents for about R190/m2 a month,” he says.