Africa’s tallest building is set to open next month as its developers seek to cash in on security fears and traffic jams by building a high-rise residential and retail complex in the heart of Johannesburg’s financial district.
The Leonardo is a 234m skyscraper within walking distance of the JSE and Sandton City, a premier shopping mall. Developed by South Africa’s Legacy Group and Nedbank Group, it will house 254 apartments, a three-floor penthouse and five floors of office space as well as shops and restaurants.
While Johannesburg’s run-down city centre is notorious for its high crime rate, the relatively safe suburb of Sandton has undergone massive change in recent years to become a showcase for ultramodern high-rises and glass-fronted office structures.
Developers are now increasingly looking to build residential space in the area, marking a shift from the more common living arrangements of South Africa’s richest people. Johannesburg’s affluent typically live in large free-standing houses with rolling gardens and swimming pools behind walls with electric fences.
Still, with in-house restaurants, a Montessori preschool and room service, the Leonardo is likely to be more luxurious than most residential buildings in Sandton.
“These things tend to be islands in quite a big market so they tend to be successful,” said Peet Strauss, Johannesburg developments sales manager at Pam Golding Properties, South Africa’s biggest real-estate agent.
R3-billion
“At the top end, we are dependent on purchases from north of our border — buyers from elsewhere in Africa who have children in university” for instance, he said.
The R3-billion building is the latest development by Legacy, which operates 23 hotels and luxury residential complexes across Africa. Its properties range from the Michelangelo Hotel in Sandton to Hotel Le Cristal in Gabon and Labadi Beach Hotel in Ghana.
Adrian Landry, GM of the Leonardo, declined to give a price for an apartment or to disclose how many have been sold. At the nearby Embassy Towers, a 12-floor development, two-bedroom apartments start at R7.2-million.
Landry did say that the penthouse, which will be custom designed by the eventual owner and have space for six bedrooms, has attracted interest from both local and West African buyers.
On a clear day, it’s possible to see aeroplanes taking off from OR Tambo International Airport 30km away, as well as the Magaliesberg mountain range.
Over half of the apartments are available on a buy-to-rent basis, with the building also serving as a hotel with one-bedroom apartments costing R7 250/night or R54 000/month — more than 15 times the average monthly wage of a low-skilled worker.
Designed by Johannesburg’s Co-Arc International Architects, the Leonardo supersedes the Carlton Centre as the tallest building on the continent. The 222m Carlton Centre in the city centre opened in 1972 as a hotel owned by Anglo American and now serves as the headquarters of the state port and rail company, Transnet.
Of Africa’s 10 tallest buildings, four are in Johannesburg, three in Dar es Salaam, two in Nairobi and one in Lagos. Construction of the 314m Pinnacle Tower in Nairobi has stalled. — Reported by Antony Sguazzin, (c) 2019 Bloomberg LP
