The project, which was completed in December last year, has won the prestigious South African Property Owners Association (Sapoa) award for property excellence for a residential development. The award was presented at the SAPOA annual convention in Durban last week.

John Chapman, a director of Rabie Property Projects, which jointly developed The Island Club with Harries Projects and Nedbank Corporate Property Finance, said they were delighted with the industry’s recognition of the innovative excellence of the development, which they believed was of a world class standard.

“In fact we believe so much in the quality of this project  that we have also entered it for the coveted Bentley International Property Awards which take place in London at the end of the year,” he said.

The Island Club, which is set across The Grand Canal from Canal Walk shopping centre,  was the first project to bring residential living to the central Century City site and has been followed by four other extremely successful developments including Villa Italia, KnightsBridge, Bougain Villas and The Oasis Retirement Resort.

Chapman said the market had significantly endorsed the R450million project which had sold out in a record two month period with initial investors having enjoyed significant capital growth, in some cases in excess of 40% over the development phase.

Demand for apartments in The Island Club remain strong with more than 130 apartments having been re-sold for initial investors. Owner occupiers now account for approximately 75% of the development.

He said the challenges of the Island Club, which is set around manmade waterways and islands, included responding to the striking architecture of Canal Walk and in particular its northern face to Half Moon Bay; ensuring that virtually all apartments had water frontage; creating a secure and luxuriously landscaped environment with running tracks, play parks, indoor heated and outdoor pools; producing buildings with movement and changing roofscapes so as to respond to the waterways and achieve visual interest and a human scale and enabling a lifestyle of convenience where buildings and spaces were interconnected, safe and user-friendly.

The professional team on The Island Club also included architects Marc Harries Architects in association with Raymond Alexander; De Villiers Sheard (Civil & Structural Engineers); DSV Consulting (Electrical Engineers); Forsyth Vermeulen & Partners (Quantity Surveyors):  David Hellig & Abrahamse (Land Surveyors); Planning Partners (Town Planners & Landscape Architects); Deneys Reitz (Conveyancers); Harries Projects (Construction Managers); Murray & Roberts (Construction) and Nedbank (Development Finance) and Rabie Property Projects (Project Managers). The main contractor on the development which took 18 months to build was Murray & Roberts (Cape) (Pty) Ltd.