Despite delays due to city approvals and funding hurdles, construction on the Zero-2-One Tower – which will become the tallest building in Cape Town – is expected to launch soon.
The Zero-2-One Tower first made headlines in 2016, when plans to construct the R1.3 billion city centre project on the corner of Adderley and Strand Streets in Cape Town were unveiled, led by developers FWJK.
During the course of the planning for the tower, the project was hit by several delays, mostly related to the approval processes of the City of Cape Town, which included stipulations that new developments include ‘affordable housing’ – an incredibly difficult task in a city with some of the highest house and apartment prices in the country.
More recently, on the tail of the worst quarterly economic data in a decade, it was speculated that the project had been cancelled due to a lack of funding.
Speaking to BusinessTech, FWJK CEO, David Williams-Jones said that this was not the case.
Williams-Jones acknowledged that procuring funds locally proved difficult because of the economic downturn – however, he said the development was able to secure funding through foreign direct investment.
“The procurement of project funding has faced headwinds and has had to be secured through foreign direct investment,” he said.
“Raising property development finance of R1 billion to undertake the project through conventional SA banking sources has proved impossible due to the current state of the economy and cautious bank appetite at the present time to lend on projects of this scale.”
New timeline
In terms of new timelines, Williams-Jones said that the project is targeting a construction launch within the next few months, pending approvals from the Reserve Bank.
“Once the SA Reserve Bank approval of the foreign funding has been processed, we are targeting to commence construction works on site within the next three to four months, bringing with it the added benefit of 3,000 new on and off site jobs being created,” he said.
Zero 2 One Tower, at 44 storeys, will become the tallest building in Cape Town and will comprise 570 apartments and 7,000 sqm of retail shops on ground level and station concourse level, he said.
The current tallest building in Cape Town is Portside Tower, at 32 floors, which is jointly owned by FirstRand Bank and Accelerate Property Fund. At the time of its completion in 2014 (at a cost of R1.6 billion), Portside was Cape Town CBD’s first new skyscraper in 15 years.
More info about the building can be found here. Below (left) is a render of the intended final building, (center) the location in the CBD where it will be constructed, and (right) Portside Tower.
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