Sasol employees have begun moving into the South African energy and chemicals company’s giant, hi-tech new head office in Sandton, north of Johannesburg.
The building, Sasol Place, located at 50 Katherine Street, cost R2bn to erect.
In 2012, the group executive committee approved a strategy to consolidate Sasol’s 17 Johannesburg-based corporate offices.
Having considered 22 different site proposals, in March 2013, Sasol selected the Sasol Pension Fund and its partners, the Elixir Trust and Alchemy Partners, to co-own and develop the building.
The building, located just down the road from Discovery’s expansive, still-under-construction new headquarters, uses “advanced, fit-for-purpose” technologies and is designed to be highly energy efficient.
The fancy new headquarters come despite the collapse in the oil price since the project was approved. According to Sasol, the project team was required to reduce its original budgets, with specific areas of Sasol Place “delayed or repurposed to ensure maximum value for money in the near term”.
The building has 11 floors (excluding a seven-storey parkade), is 47m tall and has 67 000sq m of rentable area. The parking garage has space for 3 000 cars. The building also boasts the largest corporate rooftop garden in Africa.
Four 1 850kVa generators provide 100% energy redundancy, while “self-shading” reduces energy costs. The building has a five-star Green Star rating. The site has 18km of cables and 120km of earth wire.
It has a restaurant, fitness centre, “pastry shop”, art gallery, work cafés and 200-seat auditorium with advanced acoustics — top-rated South African blues-rock guitarist Dan Patlansky has already performed in it and has apparently given it the thumbs up. The auditorium can host live musical performances without disturbing the building’s residents and visitors, Sasol said.
A team of chefs has also been hired to feed the workforce, with both breakfast and lunch.
The new building does not house any data facilities. These are offsite, closer to Sasol’s main plants, a spokesman said. — © 2016 NewsCentral Media