The site, in the centre of Pretoria, near Church Square was mostly undeveloped and provided the ideal opportunity to densify the urban landscape with a mixed use development that includes retail, offices and apartment style units.

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The heritage listed double storey office building will be refurbished and an outside landscaped courtyard will be created between the existing and new building. The scheme proposed to create a new arcade link to the existing Capital Towers, adding further retail opportunities to link the two sites. The existing building “Ons Eerste VolksBank” commonly known as the Red Building was constructed in 1930 and design by Collet [Kuijers, 1985] or Gordon Ellis [UP documentation]. It was constructed in the same time period as the Mutual building and the “Reserwebank”.

 

A new multi-storey residential building with a large rentable parking component on the first, 2nd and 3rd floors will be constructed on Madiba street. The building will consist of 142 new residential units with a large landscaped entertainment courtyard on “podium” level including braai facilities, social seating space and a playground for children. The ground floor will be retail space opening to all surrounding streets, including the new arcade space between the new and existing building. In response to the existing facebrick building, the new building is constructed of a light coloured facebrick contrasting the old and new. The existing heritage building is renovated and is envisioned to house a restaurant on ground floor level, that opens up towards the new arcade and office space on the upper level.