Dimension Data is at an advanced stage of talks to sell The Campus, long the site of its head office in Johannesburg, TechCentral has learnt.
Grant Bodley, CEO of the Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp (NTT)-owned Dimension Data Middle East & Africa, said in response to a query: “We are considering the sale of The Campus, but no transaction has been concluded.”
A source claiming to have knowledge of the situation said the facility is being sold to an all-women empowerment grouping.
The deal is all but done and should be announced soon, the source said.
It’s understood that Dimension Data will lease back the space it occupies from the new owners.
According to The Campus website, the facility was originally created as a premier technology park for Dimension Data.
At the time it was built, soon after the turn of the century, Dimension Data had been expected to occupy most if not all of the facility, but the IT crash that followed the bursting of the dot-com bubble saw Dimension Data leasing a large portion of The Campus to other companies.
Conferencing space
The facility — on the corner of Main Road and Sloane Street — also has extensive conferencing space in The Forum, which has proved popular over the years for companies hosting events.
Dimension Data relocated to The Campus from its old head office at the Oval in Epsom Downs, about a kilometre up the road, which it had outgrown.
The Campus cost R520-million to build, according to Kantey & Templer Consulting Engineers, who were appointed as the structural engineers for the project. Kantey & Templer said The Campus required the placing of about 90 000 cubic metres of concrete, 6 800 tons of reinforcing and 8.5 million bricks. It has space for 4 000 cars in its “interconnected super-basement” and has 75 000 square metres of office space across 18 low-rise buildings.
According to The Campus website, the facility is “home to leading global enterprises as well as selected local entrepreneurial technology companies and pharmaceutical, software and advertising businesses”. — (c) 2019 NewsCentral Media
