When 11 Diagonal Street in Johannesburg was commissioned in 1981 it was SA's most revolutionary piece of commercial architecture. It was also a symbol of Anglo American property division's dream of shaping the future of Johannesburg, a city built on gold.

Designed by US postmodern architect Helmut Jahn and built by Anglo American for R70m (R800m in 2006 money), the energy-guzzling building was occupied in 1983 by top companies (and the FM) wanting to be over the road from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

But the dream of a world city of ultra-modern offices faded quickly in the 1990s. Business fled the urban decay of central Johannesburg for Sandton, thanks to the city's shortsighted restrictions on parking in the CBD and the flood of poor people into the city with the breakdown of apartheid laws. Anglo American Property Services CEO Gerald Leissner launched a series of attempts to stop the decay in Johannesburg's urban fabric and revive the property market. But it was in vain, mainly because the large Johannesburg inner-city institutional property owners - such as Old Mutual, Sanlam and Anglo's own subsidiary, Southern Life - were the ones building new offices in the suburbs for the CBD's fleeing businesses.

Rather than becoming Johannesburg's new icon building to replace Anglo's 1973 Carlton Centre, 11 Diagonal Street ignominiously became a centrepiece in the transformation of Anglo's property fund, Apex, into "high-risk" property fund ApexHi in 2001.

Anglo was paid R48m (R64m in today's money), less than 10% of its original cost in real terms. But its sale (agreed subject to some conditions precedent) to Absa Bank last
week for R104m, 13% of cost, is a litmus test for Gauteng premier Mbhazima Shilowa's own dream of turning the Johannesburg CBD into the centre of a new world city encompassing the whole Gauteng province.

Leissner, now ApexHi CEO, says the price was far higher than the book value of R62m and "well above the value of the property if we filled it with tenants at current rents".

ApexHi is not the only organisation to profit from Anglo's shattered dream. Their even more important Carlton Centre, built at a cost of R50m (about R1,3bn in today's money) was sold in 1999 to Transnet for R33m. The 223 m², 50-floor office tower, SA's first mixed-use complex, is still the country's tallest office building.

Absa will move its business banking and corporate property finance teams into 11 Diagonal Street when AngloGold moves out in May. It also plans to rent out a portion of the building.

Lack of parking remains an issue - Absa is paying ApexHi R20m for the nearby West Street parkade to overcome that problem.