The refurb scheduled to be finished by March 2009 promises a renewed look and feel for the 22 year old centre. Ronnie Sevitz, Development Manager at Investec Property Group, syas that "as a team, we look forward to launching a new and improved Balfour Park that our customers will be truly satisfied with."

The mall’s new green and energy-saving outlook will manifest mainly in the implementation of new lighting and generators. Sevitz says, "In the old days we were not used to power cuts, so in the event of a power shortage trade came to a stand still, except of course for major tenants with their own generators, such as Woolworths, Checkers and Edgars. For this reason Balfour Park is installing generators which provide 100% redundancy, which means that in the event of a power cut, all shops will continue to function as normal, with the exception of any air-conditioning". The standby generator sets are Caterpillar Engines featuring ACERT technology that burn fuel at lower temperatures and therefore resulting in lower fuel emissions.

Ricky Cifarelli from Quad Africa, Balfour Park’s electrical consultant, commented on changes being made to the mall lighting.  "We are replacing the existing light fittings with energy efficient lamps – this is better both in terms of wattage and maintenance.” The lights will be controlled in such a manner that it will be possible to maximize and accentuate the use of any available natural light in the mall areas. “Newly installed light sensor units will be utilized for this purpose," says Cifarelli.

Lighting in the centre will also operate off timer switches creating sufficient light at night in places identified necessary to be illuminated, saving energy and maintenance costs. 

Sevitz says, "Shoppers can expect new lighting everywhere, so that everything is bright as well as energy saving. "It has been a concern for some time now that security in the area requires attention,” he said.  Security companies started to patrol neighboring suburbs, which has resulted in a marked decrease in criminal activity in those areas. Although the area immediately surrounding the Balfour Park shopping centre has, traditionally, not been patrolled The developer has taken pro-active steps to resolve this issue in that area." 

“We have interacted with the organisation who have formed CAP, Community Active Protection, an umbrella body which controls the surrounding areas.” Sevitz explains that Balfour Park has offered to kick start the patrol system in the Balfour Park shopping centre area, in order to get it off the ground. Ideally, we would like this security initiative to be supported by all businesses in the area, by contributing to this initiative. He said that it will hopefully be up and running in the very near future and that the community will feel safe and comfortable.

“In addition to all this we are also installing state of the art surveillance cameras, and are respeccing the entire security compliment in the complex with suitable, hi-tech alternatives.”

We have also agreed that the existing security staff compliment at Ballfour Park be re-organised so as to take into account modern security methods, and we expect these changes to take place within the next few weeks.