By Roux van Zyl

Construction on the small university town of Alice’s first fully- fledged shopping centre kicks start on Monday 

The developer of the R30 million Kwantu shopping centre, as well as its potential tenants, say the investment comes at a time the town was ready to develop to its full potential.

At the sod-turning ceremony last Friday, Nkonkobe Municipality’s newly elected mayor Dumalisile Ngcuka said the investment was “heartwarming” for Alice.

“The municipality has grappled with plans in the past to develop Alice. Most of the buildings around are privately owned and the municipality should form strategic linkages with the owners to develop the properties and in turn improve the town’s image,” he said.

Ngcuka said it was a “sad reality” that the town had no upmarket accommodation to house University of Fort Hare and Lovedale College students. “Kwantu will undoubtedly attract more sustainable development to the town,” he said.

The centre’s developer, Grant Wheatley of Novate Property Investments, said tenants had already booked out all available rental space.

Construction is expected to take one year and the tenants include Spar, Jet Mart, Pepstores and a First National Bank branch.

The anchor tenant George Georgiou, who owns the Fort Beaufort Spar, said his family had been doing business in the area for 30 years. He felt the time was right to invest in Alice.

“We will put up a new, modern supermarket with air conditioning and all the extras. I am confident it will work,” he said.

The centre will also attract the first full branch of FNB in the town. It will replace the current service branch in Alice’s Main Street.

Branch manager Ken Dale said the Main Street branch was running out of capacity.

“The Alice branch’s customer base has grown 38 percent over the past year, compared with eight percent growth in Fort Beaufort,” he said.

The branch’s administration manager, Phelisile Gege, said the growth was due to its core market of old and young people from surrounding villages, who used banking facilities.

The new branch will be double the size of the old branch at 600m² and have four ATMs.

But soon after the event five people wearing SA Communist Party shirts arrived at the site and vowed to halt construction of the centre.

Unathi Ngcume, who claims to be from a local residents’ association, said they were unhappy because they had not been “consulted” about the development.

Wheatley said development of the shopping centre had been subject to full environmental and public consultation processes before it was approved by the council.