By Sipho Masondo

The Madiba Bay Development Agency (MBDA) on Thursday unveiled to the public its preliminary plans to transform Strand Street into a pedestrian-friendly shopping area, with slick residential and office space.

The ambitious plan, projected at about R45-million, proposes the converting of one lane of Strand Street into a pedestrian space featuring pavements, craft and coffee shops, trading kiosks and parking bays.

This, in turn, the MBDA hopes will induce property owners in Strand Street and all the other small streets leading to Govan Mbeki Avenue to upgrade their properties, and create residential and office space in Central.

The whole project, together with other developments like the upgrading of Govan Mbeki Avenue, Parliament Street and the Donkin Reserve, form part of the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality‘s greater vision to revitalise the central business district and lure business back.

MDBA consultant Jonathan Mercer said: “Strand Street is not a stand-alone project. Collectively, all these projects represent a world- class people-friendly inner city , free of crime and decay.

“Unfortunately, we don‘t have billions to do it all at the same time. That‘s why we have to fragment the developments into smaller manageable projects.”

The area to be upgraded stretches from Russell Road to the traffic intersection at the end of Baakens Street. “This will really facilitate easy access to Govan Mbeki from Strand Street, and provide consumers with a pleasant shopping experience,” Mercer said.

He said the agency would spend the rest of this year planning, and would hopefully begin construction as early as possible in 2009.

After interacting with commuters, business owners, property owners and pedestrians, a consortium featuring Arcuss Gibb consulting engineers, Urban Econ and Imbono FJA, identified a number of issues which impacted negatively on Strand Street.

Among others, the consortium‘s research revealed that the freeways above Strand Street were impacting negatively on the environment.

They also identified traffic congestion, crime, decay, noise pollution, cluttered and informal trading, lack of open spaces and general unpleasantness as problems.

Mercer said the taxi rank in Strand Street would also be removed, and the taxis would be integrated into the bus rapid transport system.

“We will also put stairs descending from the Market Square, between Traduna Mall and Kwantu Towers, down to the historic Campanile at the entrance of the harbour. We will probably also put speed limits in Strand Street, limiting speed to about 20km/h. We will leave a deck so that people will still be able to access Kwantu Towers.”

Among others, the MBDA is tasked with the redevelopment of the Tramways building, the lower Baakens River and the facilitation and relocation of the tank farms.

Mercer said getting approval from the Eastern Cape provincial heritage resources authority for the building‘s redevelopment was the only thing holding up the project.

“It is over 60 years, and you need approval before destroying or working on such buildings.”

Source: The Herald