Calgro M3 Memorial Parks aim to revolutionise the burial industry

18th June 2015

By: Creamer Media Reporter

  

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From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, this is the Real Economy Report. JSE-listed residential property developer Calgro M3 Holdings’ subsidiary, Calgro M3 Memorial Parks, has diversified its portfolio by recently launching its first memorial park, in Nasrec, near Soweto.

Ilan Solomons attended the opening of the Nasrec Memorial Park and filed this report.

Ilan Solomons:
The Nasrec Memorial Park is first development of its kind by Calgro M3 in what it says promises to fulfil a need to provide a dignified last resting place for loved ones.

The 20 ha Nasrec Memorial Park, situated just off the Nasrec offramp on the Western Bypass, will initially accommodate 22 500 graves with the potential to add another 11 000 graves at a later stage.

Calgro M3 MD Wikus Lategan explains the rationale behind the company’s decision to diversify its portfolio and how privately-owned burial parks will help to alleviate the current pressure State-owned cemeteries face in providing burials and maintaining grave sites.  

Calgro M3 MD Wikus Lategan

Ilan Solomons:
Calgro M3 has undertaken extensive research over the past three years and invested R75-million in the project since acquiring the land parcel in October 2014.

The company has also placed a high premium on security, including having 24-hour roaming guards, a closed-circuit television system, electrified fencing and appropriate lighting.

Lategan says that Calgro M3 intends to reinvent how people perceive burial areas, as the memorial park will provide a peaceful, park-like environment with the sounds of bird song and flowing water, where families from nearby communities will be able to come not only for funerals and to commemorate their loved ones, but also just to relax.

Additionally the memorial park’s features include indigenous trees in a landscaped garden with two manmade lakes, linked by a stream.

An island has been built in the bigger dam to attract birdlife. A wall of remembrance with an eternal flame is also located at the centre of the park.

The Nasrec Memorial Park will also boast four chapels, the biggest accommodating 200 people but which could be extended for larger groups.

Lategan says this will replace the numerous tents that are often required at funerals and which create the impression of commercialisation and clutter often associated with public cemeteries.

Calgro M3 MD Wikus Lategan

Ilan Solomons:
Energy solutions provider and project consultant Matleng CEO Corrie van der Wath points out that the Nasrec Memorial Park will be operated entirely off the electricity grid, using renewable-energy sources and generator back-up power.

Matleng CEO Corrie van der Wath

Shannon de Ryhove:
Other news making headlines this week: Telkom steps up its turnaround strategy as gains emerge; Ford improves its automation processes at its Silverton assembly plant; and South Africa’s geoscience industry is ‘desperately’ underfunded.

JSE-listed Telkom is nearing the end of the first chapter of its turnaround programme, which is seeing the embattled group stabilise after a downward spiral in recent years.

Telkom Group CEO Sipho Maseko

Automotive manufacturer Ford’s Silverton assembly plant, in Pretoria, has improved the automation of the Ford Ranger production line, following the installation of a conveyor belt and wax system.

Ford Manage the Change team manager Victoria Machete

Government geoscientists are desperately underfunded, which is depriving South Africa of the geological potential that is essential for minerals exploration.

Nedbank Capital mining and metals investment banker Paul Miller

That’s Creamer Media’s Real Economy Report. Join us again next week for more news and insight into South Africa’s real economy.

Edited by Shannon de Ryhove
Contributing Editor

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