Situated on Barrage Road, Vanderbijlpark, near the central business district, the planned Vaal Mall is expected to address retail shortcomings in the area, which developers say have resulted in about R300m of the local spend moving to other areas.

This is the first regional mall in Vanderbijlpark, and it will also serve the areas of Sasolburg, Sebokeng, Bophelong and Boip atong.

The 45000m² mall will be developed by Kagiso Property Holdings, Flanagan & Gerard Property Consultants and Urban Land Marketing, and will be anchored by Pick 'n Pay, Woolworths, Edgars and Game.

Pat Flanagan of Flanagan & Gerard said yesterday the mall would be jointly owned by a listed property unit trust that is yet to be named, Kagiso Property Holdings and by Flanagan & Gerard. A 20% stake in the mall would be awarded to an empowerment group.

Flanagan said they were in negotiations with about three empowerment groupings. T hough some property pundits say there is not much scope for more regional shopping centres in SA, Flanagan said research showed a regional mall needed a population of 150000 - 180 000 people with net disposable income for support .

He said official statistics showed there were 600000 people with net disposable income in the Vaal Mall's catchment area.

Earthworks at the site are expected to begin before year-end with the main contractor taking over the site in January next year.

The first two phases of 30000m², and what was initially planned to be a 15000m² secondphase extension, are scheduled for opening in March 2006.