Twenty-five years in the past, the Cape City Metropolis centre was, within the phrases of Central Metropolis Enchancment District (CCID) board member and property proprietor Tamra Capstick-Dale, “fragile”. Fragile is what you name one thing in intensive care, not one thing you’d stake a decade of lease roll on.
Fourteen editions of the State of Cape City Central Metropolis Report later and no one on the launch used the phrase. Few South African metropolis centres recuperate from the place ours was and fewer maintain on to the restoration.
Final week I attended the annual State of Cape City Central Metropolis 2025 report on the FNB Portside tower in Cape City.
12 months after 12 months, town centre has been steadily proving {that a} downtown could be pulled again from the brink and stored there. Within the early 2000s, landlords have been sitting on half-empty buildings, and companies have been downscaling and relocating to the suburbs and the northern nodes.
Loads of South African metropolis centres went that means and by no means got here again. Cape City additionally almost did.
As an alternative, a bunch of property homeowners agreed to tax themselves on their very own buildings and partnered with the Metropolis of Cape City to kind the Cape City CCID. It is a not-for-profit private-public firm, funded by the landlords whose buildings sit inside its 1.74km² footprint of town bowl. The job is to maintain town centre clear and secure.
The logic is primary but efficient. For those who take care of the encircling space of your asset, you’ll make your constructing a fascinating place to work and reside in. Your asset is value solely what somebody is keen to pay to occupy it. And not directly, the worth of your asset will enhance that being the capital development. I want extra metros would grasp the idea and execute comparable programs.
Twenty-five years and 14 years of reporting later, property funding within the interior metropolis hit R12.8 billion in 2025/26, up 41% on the earlier 12 months’s R9bn, unfold throughout 29 accomplished, under-construction, deliberate and proposed developments.
Government mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis and Western Cape Premier Alan Winde have began calling it “Growth City”.
In accordance with the Sapoa Workplace Emptiness Survey for This fall 2025, the interior metropolis’s workplace emptiness price sat at 10%, the second lowest of any metropolis centre in South Africa and under the nationwide price of 12.8%.
Johannesburg metro got here in at 15.8% and Durban at 12.1%.
Vacancies went above 16% throughout the pandemic and town centre has clawed it again sooner than another main node within the nation.
Past the vacant workplace flooring, we’re seeing builders construct new workplace area. Six industrial buildings sit within the metropolis centre’s workplace pipeline, value a mixed R2.38bn.
Two are accomplished, together with the renovation by Growthpoint of Ninety One valued at R600 million and a heritage renovation of 93 Bree Workspace by Neighbourgood valued at R32m, with three extra underneath development, amongst them two additional Neighbourgood heritage renovations on Loop and Buitengracht Streets, each valued at R25m.
The newest premium-grade industrial showstopper continues to be to return; she’s huge and she or he’s shiny.
Introducing The Matrix, Boxwood Property Fund’s deliberate R1.7bn growth will add greater than 27 000m² of workplace area, a retail part and 570 parking bays to town centre by 2029. The central metropolis accounts for 308 217 jobs, the second highest of any metropolis centre within the nation after Johannesburg, out of a footprint of 1.74km².
Non-public sector employment within the metropolis centre has grown by 23% since 2014 and unemployment throughout better Cape City fell to 19.8% by the final quarter of 2025, the bottom of any metro in South Africa for a third-consecutive quarter.
The administration sector has been the one largest driver of the expansion, climbing from 10% to 18% of metropolis centre employment over the previous decade, adopted by hospitality and commerce. The town centre closed 2025 with 3 547 companies buying and selling inside its borders, up 257 on the 12 months earlier than and the best quantity on document. Retail and leisure venues alone grew to 1 495, led by 27 new superettes, 22 new hair salons and 22 new jewelry designers and producers, alongside 10 new hashish shops and lounges, a class up 71% in a single 12 months. Espresso retailers and cafés quantity 94, which seems like lots till you bear in mind this can be a metropolis centre with the best focus of unbiased espresso roasters within the nation. Espresso retailers have additionally grow to be the brand new “assembly room”, with many workplace employees making use of the areas exterior the workplace to speak technique with colleagues and preserve relationships with shoppers.
Over the previous 5 years, 22 new residential buildings value R5.1bn have added roughly 3 260 flats to the housing inventory, bringing the entire to 7 675 residential items.
Median sectional title costs have climbed 53.5% for the reason that pandemic, sitting at just below R1.9m at first of this 12 months, with overseas consumers making the most of a beneficial trade price alongside native traders chasing higher rates of interest.
On the occasions and conferencing facet, town centre can host formal or casual features throughout 60 venues with a mixed seated capability of 83 702 individuals, the whole lot from CTICC 2’s max capability of 35 435 right down to boutique resort venues seating as few as 30.
Fourteen years of upward numbers occurred as a result of landlords, who might have reduce their losses, selected to fund an organisation whose job was to make their very own buildings value extra by making the entire precinct work higher and since the Metropolis was keen to indicate up as a companion quite than simply one other landlord.
For anybody constructing a profession on this trade and questioning whether or not property generally is a pressure for good in a metropolis, this report is your annual reminder that it may be if sufficient individuals with one thing to lose resolve to wager on each other as a substitute of operating in the other way.
