10 November 2003

The southern half of the R 16 million 6 000m2 Lakeside Shopping Centre is about to undergo a revamp costing almost R1 million – and will soon see some major tenant changes.

The centre was acquired towards the end of last year by Inframax Developments in partnership with Colin Plit and at the time they announced that they thought the centre had huge potential.

Rory McKellar-Basset, who negotiated the sale and who now manages the centre, said that most of the seven shops in the southern section of the centre will either be moving to new positions or giving way to new tenants.

The popular Diamond’s Discount Liquors will be taking over smaller (270 m2) but better fitted out premises and a member of the national Vees Video chain will be moving to a specially designated 184 m2 space in the centre in the new year.

Two 100 m2 floor areas are being reserved for convenience store outlets for which negotiations are currently in progress.

In addition, a member of the well-known Thai Foods chain will be taking over 110 m2 and trading under the name Simply Asian. This upmarket oriental restaurant will have a selection of Far Eastern and Asian food and will be managed by a specialist team under the direction of Chai Lekcharoensak, the owner of the chain. The existing, always popular, Bella Pizza outlet will be modernised and improved - already, said McKellar-Basset, it does excellent trade.

Adjacent the Spar store, a new Steers Burger franchise with 110 m2 will go into operation early in the New Year. It is envisaged that this will have seating for 25 people but will concentrate on the fast-food service.

The aesthetics of the centre will be improved by moving certain of the façade canopies and creating a single homogenous roofline on which the signage will be uniformly and regularly displayed. Special spaces on the Spar façade will also help them to upgrade their promotional signage and displays, and these will soon no longer be seen in the parking area.

In addition, the protruding section adjacent to Bella Pizza will be emphasised and turned into an architectural feature by the erection of two large columns.

The developers will also widen the front pedestrian pavement, thereby keeping the cars further away from the retail centre and making it more consumer friendly. They will also clad the lower 900 mm of the façade with attractive stone tiling.

The parking area will be re-landscaped with hard and soft surfaces and damaged kerbstones will be re-installed.

The whole "shopping experience", said McKellar-Basset, will also be improved by the creation of a new access corridor behind the centre for vehicular deliveries and refuse collection. This will mean that no offloading of goods in the customer car park will now be necessary.

McKellar-Basset said that the emphasis in the southern half of the centre will now be on clean, modern convenience stores, the majority of which will be selling or serving contemporary foods.

"Our aim," he said, "is to attract a far larger percentage of the passing trade using the Main Road to and from Muizenberg, Kalk Bay, St James and other False Bay suburbs. We believe that this section of the coastline is about to enter a new phase in which it will experience the same sort of boom seen in the Constantia Valley over the last decade. This gateway area to the southern half of the Peninsula will, therefore, become increasingly important and is very definitely the right place for a prominent retail centre to be sited."

The northern section of the centre has already been transformed by the addition of a garden centre to the Mica Hardware outlet and McKellar-Basset was recently able to renew the lease with the Total garage for a further 15 years. It is envisaged that this service station will later be improved by the addition of a 24-hour convenience shop.