The Fourways Mall

The Fourways Mall

Laurence Grigorov, as director of a leading residential development company, keeps abreast of current developments in the South African market. Laurence Grigorov has been developing luxury residential projects in Johannesburg, South Africa for nearly 16 years. 

The renovation and expansion of Fourways Mall is complete, more than four years after breaking ground. The new Fourways Mall now positions this shopping mall, located in the Northern Suburbs of Johannesburg, as one of the largest in the Southern hemisphere.

The expansion project has added more than 220,000m2 of space across all levels, with the total space available for retail being 178,000m2, including Fourways View and the previously standalone Game wing, which have now been embraced under the Fourways Mall roof. This will soon grow to 200,000m2 with the launch of French home improvement mega-retailer Leroy Merlin, with its box to be linked to the main mall, currently under construction.

The entire project has cost R2.1 billion to complete, supported by roadworks expansions funded by developers Azrapart costing R400 million, which represents a massive investment into a vision for the future of Fourways. Having welcomed more than 250 new brands and stores to the mall’s retail mix, Fourways Mall now offers a total of 450 shops and experiences. 

Notwithstanding the sheer scale of the project, the infrastructure and the many years of collaboration and partnership to get the project consumer ready, the immense amount of project detailing is noteworthy and worth reflecting on.

With what Boogertman + Partners’s Hennie Coetzee calls Interior Architecture, the mall really comes to life once you enter it. The team did extensive research into future retail trends and visited top malls in the UK and the UAE to sense check their own design and to ensure that the mall had longevity.

Driven by the demands of retailers for more space and the growing demand of the surround communities for increased lifestyle and brand offerings, the Fourways Mall has created a number of design focuses or key areas that ensure it is awesome. In reviewing such a large project and aiming to look beyond the sheer volume of the square metres it is important to span between the scale and the design detailing brought through in every aspect that creates the overall experience of the mall.

The new Fourways Mall has taken the South African retail experience to the next level, meeting the demand for destination shopping that offers more for the customer than the traditional shopping mall environment.

Words and image courtesy of Architect & Builder magazine