Durban - Owners of the Greater Edendale Mall in Pietermaritzburg, which was extensively damaged by fire during last July’s unrest, are confident that within 18 months the shopping centre will be operational, as the rebuilding process has now begun.
The rebuilding will involve a demolition before construction can take place, owing to the extent of the damage caused last year.
The mall is owned by Exemplar REITail Limited, a property development company with headquarters in Centurion, Pretoria, in Gauteng.
Greater Edendale Mall marketing manager Gugu Ngcobo said the process would take a fair amount of time as they had opted to rebuild as opposed to doing repair work.
“It is far better to rebuild than to seek to do repair work because the damage was quite extensive, 90% of the facility was damaged,” said Ngcobo who was on site on Tuesday.
She added the demolition job was equally dangerous as some of the pillars of the mall structure were unstable, months after the destruction took place and this meant that workers had to be extra careful.
“This is why this will take time because we have to make sure that workers on site do not get injured in the process. But we are confident that in 18 months’ time people will see the difference,” Ngcobo continued.
She said she was unable to give the figure on the costs of the construction, but indicated that it ran into millions of rand.
The mall provided employment to more than 2000 people from Pietermaritzburg and surrounding areas who worked in different businesses including at retailers Pick and Pay and Shoprite.
Msunduzi mayor Mzi Thebolla said they were encouraged by the news of the mall reconstruction, adding that this was in indication of business confidence in the city.
“News of this nature shows that organised business realises there is an effort to improve things in and around Pietermaritzburg from our side. It also means we must continue with the effort so that as the KwaZulu-Natal capital we can continue moving forward,” said the mayor.
He conceded the July riots were an unfortunate chapter which the city would like to get over quickly because of the devastation it caused to many families in the city.
THE MERCURY