CANAL Walk, Century City's retail centre, is on track to achieve turnover of R1.7 billion for its third year of trading - up from R1.35bn the previous year and 70% or R700 million ahead of its maiden trading year. Mickey Radowsky, managing director of Canal Walk, said the shopping centre was continuing to grow in leaps and bounds with the strong performance attracting an increasing number of new tenants.

"As Canal Walk's dominance in the market grows, so is the letting activity. We currently have new leases totalling 6 800m2 signed or under serious negotiation with most if not all of these new stores expected to open before Christmas," he said.

Recent research by Urban Studies found that Canal Walk was the only shopping centre in the country that had successfully established itself as a true super-regional attracting regular customers from far afield and enjoying a higher than expected loyalty rate from its customer base with 51% reporting at least one visit per week and a further 31% at least one visit per month.

"When the latest round of new tenants are installed this will catapult Canal Walk into a league of its own. It will entrench both its position in the market and its potential for further growth as these new tenants will attract significant additional customers and spend to the centre," said Radowsky. He said the latest lettings would increase the total retail space let to more than 118 000m2 - from current levels of around 112 000m2.

"This is a significant achievement and puts us at a level we only anticipated achieving during 2005," he said. New lettings include House and Home, which is taking just under 2 000m2, Incredible Connection with a 500m2 store and Jenni Button and Hilton Weiner with 280m2. Serious negotiations, he said, were also under way for a 450m2 Lifestyle Living store, a supermarket clothing store of more than 400m2 and a 680m2 grill and tavern.

Radowsky said a number of other shops were relocating to larger or more suitable premises. This included the pending consolidation of the two existing pharmacies, which currently trade over a total of 900m2, into a mega 1 600m2 store and Home Etc and Kick Interiors. Canal Walk was recently acquired by Hyprop and the Ellerine Brothers with the transfer expected to go through in October