Buffalo City dystopia
By Ian Fife
 
Is East London the next city about to be reduced to rubble by a shopping centre?
     
Buffalo City, the de facto capital of the Eastern Cape and centred on SA's seventh-largest city, East London, will finally get a regional shopping centre. But, like Somerset West, Paarl, Pietermaritzburg and other central business districts that have been damaged by out-of-town malls, its 880 000 residents and their planning officials will not have much say in the matter.

"The big retailers will ultimately decide," concedes Craig Sam, Buffalo City's director of development planning.

Here's how it works: three development groups are battling each other for a regional shopping centre about half the size of Sandton City or Canal Walk, which they believe will become the new paradise for local shoppers. Investec Property Group and Thynk Properties have acquired a site in fast-growing Gonubie. Zenprop has a plan for a centre in Beacon Bay. And Billion Group has bought a site next to Hemingways Casino. All are Johannesburg-based.

Success will be assured for the first one who signs up a few key retailers such as Pick 'n Pay, Woolworths, Edgars, Foschini, Mr Price and @Home. Their signatures will open the doors to bank funding for the development and a rampant herd of small retailers desperate to bag some space. The design of the mall and the retail mix will be the same as all the other centres around the country - no matter who wins. That seems to be how SA's mall-mad shoppers like it.

But where the new centre is placed will have a dramatic effect on the rest of East London, strengthening or weakening other business nodes and important development plans for the city. It could, for instance, boost the revival of East London's CBD and with it The Quigney, the city's prime seafront development site, as a tourist attraction - or it could destroy it.

The retailers do not appear to see this as their concern. "We have seen strong growth from our existing CBD and regional stores and want the centre to be in Beacon Bay, central to the market growth," says Woolworths head of property Paul Simpson. "We already have a presence in Vincent Park centre and regard the Hemingways site as being in the same catchment area and therefore too close."

"We're already in the current Beacon Bay centre and not in Vincent," says Edgars' Mike Lewin. "So we are supporting Hemingways."

Pick 'n Pay, which is in Vincent and Beacon Bay, appears to be supporting the proposed Gonubie Centre.

Investec's Ronnie Sevitz argues that the Gonubie site is best because it has excellent visibility from the highway and is in East London's fastest-growing residential area. "And there is no decent shopping here," he adds.

Woolworths is said to have initiated the proposed centre in Beacon Bay. "It already has a retail centre but it is inadequate to meet demand," says Simpson. "We believe key tenants in that centre could move to the new regional mall, leaving it to become a true value centre. They would then complement each other in giving East London shoppers the best choice."

Billion Group founder and CEO Sisa Ngebulana says Hemingways has the best visibility and the best regional highway access and is close enough to the centre of East London to add to its general development. But he lacks experience, say critics.

This is not the way it works in other countries. Planning officials in densely developed countries have greater sway over politicians than do SA planners. Residents are more active and consulted about what suits them best.

Expensive research for the SA developers by Urban Studies and Doug Parker & Associates doesn't bother to ask residents that. But it does find out which shops they like best (Pick 'n Pay in East London) and how far they are away from the chosen site. Nor does anybody spell out to residents what the consequences will be of each development for the city.

Developers in Britain, Europe and Australia are increasingly forced to place their regional centres smack in the middle of the existing central business districts, so that the social and built fabric of the town or city can be preserved.

"But people will not go to the CBDs in SA, because they feel unsafe," says researcher Sheny Medani.

So which would be the best for East London?

Sam makes no bones that the most central one is in the best interests of Buffalo City because it can help integrate development and boost the city overall. The Hemingways site does offer greater accessibility to the people of King William's Town, Mdantsane, East London, Beacon Bay and Gonubie, he states.

Pat Flanagan, perhaps SA's most experienced regional shopping centre developer, is clearer. "I have no axe to grind in East London because I'm not involved in any of the developments.

"The casino site is my unequivocal choice," he says. "I tried to buy it but was beaten by Billion. It has the location, the accessibility and the visibility. Beacon Bay has nowhere near got it right and Gonubie is too far out."

Flanagan adds that it's nonsense to say Ngebulana is inexperienced. "He had immense experience at Eskom and RMB, is a most impressive developer and is well versed with East London. He has done his homework and Billion is a sound group."

But neither Flanagan, Sam nor East London will decide.