Nearing a 22% completion rate by the end of November, the project has been divided into four phases.  The first phase, which commenced in April this year, involved the demolition of a portion of the existing centre.  To achieve this, existing tenants were relocated and temporarily housed in an additional wing that was added at entrance 2 in July 2010.  All demolition work is complete and the bulk excavation for the basement parking is already well underway.

October 2010 saw the start of phase 2 which involves the construction of the new Centre, whilst trading continues at the remaining portion of the Mall.  A new Mall extension to Checkers Hyper has been opened to the general public since 1st November, which also included two new public block toilets for ladies, gents and disabled shoppers.  This walkway links Checkers Hyper to Woolworths in an effort to ensure the Centre remains convenient and comfortable for all shoppers.

An additional 700 undercover parking bays will be available in July 2011, pushing the total number of parking bays available to customers to 1500.  Leases that have been already been secured for the new Mall include the Pepkor Group (Ackermans, Pep, Shoe City, Jay Jays and Hang Ten); the Edcon Group (Jet, Edgars and CNA); the Foschini Group (@Home, Exact, Sterns; Fashion Express, Foschini Emporium which includes Donna Clare, Markham, American Swiss and Matrix, as well as Total Sports and Sportscene); the Truworths Group (Truworths and Identity) as well as independent stores such as Harris and D’Arcy Jewellers, Dischem Pharmacy and Sheet Street.
 
“We’re very excited at how quickly building is progressing on-site.  Its business as usual at Blue Route Mall, with almost all of the building work divorced from the trading portion of the Mall.  Furthermore, our Christmas activities and holiday programme offer loads of fun for the whole family to enjoy”, says Wendy Radford, Centre Manager of Blue Route Mall from Broll Property Management.

The launch of the new and vastly improved Mall, which is set to be complete in 2012, has a professional team of 14 companies working an estimated two million man hours to complete the development.