The 180 room hotel forms part of a mega R750m development which also includes 91 luxury apartments, offices, conference and meeting facilities, a state-of-the art Life Day Spa, restaurants and an internal street linking the apartment and hotel towers.

Greg Deans, a director of the Rabie Property Group responsible for the development, said they had gone with the African Pride Collection due to the group’s  exhibited skills in leading hotels such as Melrose Arch.

“Importantly they also understand  new urban environments and their requirements. Their  style of hotel reflects the very essence of Century City – hip, modern, trendy and  aimed primarily at the high-end business traveller with everything  tailored  to  meet their needs,” said Deans.

He said the hotel offers extensive conference facilities which would establish it as a fully fledged convention centre.

“Facilities are tailored to the needs of both small and larger functions  with nine exquisitely furnished, fully air-conditioned private boardrooms able to accommodate between 12 and 20 people and a large conference centre, which can be customized, capable of hosting up to 300 delegates.”

Deans said Century City was the new business hub of Cape Town and it was primarily for this reason African Pride had chosen to locate its new  iconic hotel  in this rapidly growing precinct which was fast becoming Cape Town’s answer to both Sandton and the trendy Melrose Arch business precinct in Johannesburg.

“Century City is ideally located in the centre of the Cape Town metropole in easy drive access to the Cape Town International Airport, the CBD and the northern and southern suburbs and is a prime example of vertical integration of business, leisure and lifestyle. This all played an important role in African Prides’ decision to locate here.”

Century City is home to more than  220,000 square metres of prime office space and 3,500 residential properties, with approximately 40 000 people now living or working in the precinct and over 21 million people  passing through the neighbouring Canal Walk Shopping Centre shopping precinct on an annual basis.

 “Leading national and international businesses as well as numerous small  to medium size companies have set up at Century City, creating a demand not only for luxury accommodation but for conferencing and meeting facilities that are slick and state of the art,” he said.

The mega Crystal Towers development also includes an apartment tower, the foyer of which like the hotel, is accessed off the internal street.

The  91 luxury apartments range from studios aimed primarily at corporate and business travellers to larger apartments aimed at owner occupiers.  Apartments are priced from R1,5m to over R10m for the luxury duplex penthouses.

“These apartments are truly in a class of their own, offering buyers an exceptional five star lifestyle,” says Deans.

He said strong pre-launch interest had been shown  in the apartments, with 22 of the apartments already spoken for. Construction of the apartments is due for completion in March 2010 ahead of the public launch.

Investors, he said, had the option of putting their fully furnished and air conditioned apartment into  the Crystal Towers Rental Pool where short term lets have a history of generating returns of over 10% per annum.