Century City is a 250 ha suburb of Cape Town, South Africa. Century City is structured as a mixed-use development including entertainment, residential, retail and office components. Development began under Monex Development in 1997 and continues under the new owners, Rabie Property Group. Investment thus far exceeds R10 billion. It is located 10 km to the north-east of central Cape Town along the N1 motorway and is traversed by numerous waterways, wetlands and canals.
Background
Century City's original developments were the Ratanga Junctiontheme park and Canal Walk shopping centre. Canal Walk was the largest shopping mall in Africa and the Southern Hemisphere in lettable area when it was opened in December 2000 at 125,000 m². More recently expanded to 141,000 m², the mall contains over 400 stores, 20 movie theatres, many restaurants and bars and an entertainment section. Two twin office towers - the Canal Walk Towers - rest atop of the mall. Ratanga Junction was a theme park that had many monetary issues, resulting in downsizing, off-season closures and the addition of year-round conferences and entertainment facilities. It permanently closed inMay 2018 and is to be redeveloped to residential use. The Colosseum is a mixed-use R300 million development, including ground-floor cafes, offices and a 70-room four-star hotel. Construction was completed in January 2007. Adjacent to the mall are two 11-storey towers called the Crystal Towers that opened at the end of 2009. It is the largest development in the precinct after Canal Walk itself. The R750 million development consists of Century City's first 5-star hotel with 180 rooms, as well as 91 luxury apartments and an office block. Century Gate and The Estuaries are two additional commercial developments, collectively costing R500 million. ABSA occupies 5-star Green Star twin development Bridge Park in Bridgeways Precinct.
Built on a wetland area, Century City needed to comply with conservation measures. Intaka Island is a 16-hectare wetland area within the development. The wetland naturally cleans the water in the canals and provides a green lung in an otherwise high-density development.
Criticism
There were concerns that Century City would cause decentralisation from the Cape Town central business district, but thanks tothe cityimprovement district and urban renewal efforts spearheaded by the Cape Town Partnership, this has not happened. This development thus remains another commercial node in the Cape Town metropolitan area while the city centre remains vibrant. More recently, the development has been criticized for causing traffic problems. Measures have been taken with an aim to improve congestion during peak hours.
