Central Johannesburg may be on the brink of a recovery. Lofts and grand city apartments, street cafés and boutique hotels are beginning to spring up in what was, before the rush to the north, the city's financial district.

The new wave of development begins at Corner House, one of the most ornate and historic office blocks in the CBD. Two young developers, Alfonso Botha and Duan Coetzee, are converting the building into expensive loft apartments. A trial phase was put on the market by word of mouth a few months ago; so great was the rush to buy that Botha and Coetzee acquired the National Bank building next door, too.

They have also acquired Stuttafords building on the corner of Pritchard and Rissik streets, an Art Deco building in Loveday Street and Penmore Towers further down Rissik Street, as well as others they won't identify until the ink is dry on the purchase agreements.

In terms of quality, Botha and Coetzee claim, the loft apartments will rival those in London and New York. Prices will compare favourably with similar developments in the Sandton and Cape Town CBDs. But, says Botha, they will offer the kind of value found in few places in the world.

Buyers include young executives who work at First National's Bank City, Absa and Standard in the financial district; a consultant to banks and large mining groups; a lawyer; advertising executives; and a graphic designer who will commute to work in the Sandton CBD.

Botha and Coetzee are at the forefront of a buying spree by private developers. Over the past few months, at least a dozen historic buildings in the Johannesburg CBD have been snapped up. It is the first time, after many false starts, that experts are forecasting a recovery.

Down at 77 Harrison and Bree, for example, New Zealand developer Peter Still and his wife, Justine, daughter of Irish media tycoon Tony O'Reilly, are creating a mixed-use precinct - that is, a combination of commercial and residential developments.

It was announced this week, too, that Adam Fleming, nephew of James Bond creator Ian Fleming and nonexecutive chairman of Harmony Gold, had bought the old JSE building in Hollard Street and is buying other CBD properties.

In Newtown, a consortium consisting of developer Pat Flanagan (former CEO of Colliers RMS) and design firm Urban Solutions has bought the old Premier Milling building. It has turned it into The Mills @ Newtown and is filling it with ad agencies, architects and a media company. The ground floor has a music workshop and Ballet Theatre Africa.

Soon Flanagan and Urban Solutions will add residential units at a starting price of R500 000 apiece.

Precinct by precinct, Jo'burg has been fighting back against a 15-year decline. Progress is evident in Newtown and in the Braamfontein corridor, the Fashion District and the Faraday precinct development. Government "catalytic" developments include Constitution Hill, Hillbrow, and the Mandela Bridge.

Though many still view the CBD and surrounds as places to avoid, perceptions are beginning to change.

And it's not only aspects such as the Mandela Bridge that are making the difference. There are other forces for the improvement of the CBD at work:

• First, the inner city task team, led by Yakoob Magda, has cleaned streets, repaired traffic lights, replaced street signs and fixed drains.
• Second, closed circuit TV cameras have been installed, as they were in the Cape Town CBD, and, in tandem with security patrols, have gone a long way towards containing crime. A police promise that there would be a response within a minute to an incident in secured areas was verified on M-Net's Carte Blanche.
• Third, SA's first property boom in 20 years, falling inflation and interest rates and a new political stability have created confidence not seen since the 1960s.

Just three weeks ago, Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) CEO Graham Reid, a central figure in the revival of the city, reported that "perceptions are about to change".

Though the view of Jo'burg as a declining centre for low-cost offices persists, there are other signs of revival. Doctors have even returned to Lister Building in Jeppe Street, once SA's answer to London's Harley Street in terms of medical specialists.

ApexHi, the city's biggest property owner, plans a special precinct around the high court. Pritchard and Von Brandis streets will be set aside for pedestrians, creating a square around the court. ApexHi's architect, Lewis Levin, has visions of pavement cafés frequented by "the lawyers who must visit the court each day".

Levin says ApexHi wants to make its empty offices in Innes Chambers, Schreiner Chambers and New Court Chambers around the high court available for developers to turn into flats.

"But I suppose the idea of residences in the inner city is still controversial," he says.

When informed of Botha and Coetzee's conversions of historic buildings, ApexHi deputy CEO Deon Feinblum asks: "Do you think it will work?"

The newcomers to Jo'burg's property market - Botha and Coetzee, among them - see something old-timers miss. Their Johannesburg is a treasure trove of historic buildings, broad pavements, transport hubs and municipal services. And it is waiting to be transformed into the blends of commercial, residential and retail development sweeping the cities of the world.

Government is quietly getting into the act. Across Simmonds Street from Corner House, Gauteng government has bought two city blocks bounded by Simmonds, Fox, Fraser and Market streets, among other purchases.

Though transport and public works chief Jack van der Merwe will not respond to the FM's queries, there is ample evidence that this block is about to become the new government headquarters at a cost running into billions. Judging by negotiations under way between government and Heritage Resource SA, it appears that the plan will include parks. This will involve the demolition of many buildings in the precinct, with the exception of the old Reserve Bank at the corner of Simmonds and Fox streets.

There's no guarantee of a return to a past when the city was seen as safe, not to say a future of trendy city living . An infrastructure of delicatessens, pavement cafés, cinemas and bookshops will have to follow a stream of residential development. This in turn means there must be sufficient residents close enough together to ensure retailers thrive.

Not unexpectedly, there is little communication between developers, despite city improvement districts, the Johannesburg Partnership of business and government and the JDA. The ApexHi team, for instance, was unaware of the residential developments in the financial district.

And a flurry of new development is guaranteed to reveal some of the problems, other than crime and grime, that made companies move elsewhere in the first place. A lack of parking may be the most glaring.

Financial Mail