Pretoria East has 50 shopping centres and counting

Johannesburg, 13 July 2016 – Pretoria East consumers choose from 50 formal centres for their shopping needs and with additional centres being proposed, they will be further spoilt for choice.

Retail space in close proximity to and within Pretoria East is set to increase even further with 11 proposed shopping centres, measuring a combined 555,459m², of which approximately 21% is situated in Pretoria East specifically, according to the Broll Pretoria East Retail Snapshot released in July 2016.

“The numbers suggest Pretoria East, much like the retail sector in South Africa, is perceived to be oversupplied, however, since the area is still developing, the impact of the proposed new centres (if and when they come to fruition) on existing centres remains to be seen,” says Elaine Wilson, Divisional Director for Research at Broll Property Group.

People living in Pretoria East have, a staggering amount of formal retail space available to them in comparison to other major cities within South Africa with approximately 3,827m² available per 1,000 people, meaning for each person in the area, there is 3.83m² of retail space available.

Small regional centres (25,000m² – 49,000m ² ) make up the largest component of total retail GLA in the area, accounting for around 26% of space while local convenience centres (1,000m 2 – 4,999m 2 ) account for the least amount of total space (6%).

Wilson says Pretoria East has an approximate population of 201,510 people, with 61% aged below 40 and a high economically active percentage of 84.6%, which bodes well for the retail sector, as the more economically active people there are in an area the more retail spending is likely to take place. South Africa has an astounding 23,046,181m² of formal shopping centre space which comprises of close to 2,000 centres, nearly 45% of this space is in Gauteng, 15% in the Western Cape and 13% in Kwa-Zulu Natal.

Although Gauteng is the smallest province in terms of size, it has the most retail space as well as the highest population percentage with the City of Johannesburg’s formal retail space measuring roughly 4.5 million m² while the City of Tshwane has ±3 million m² of space with Pretoria East accounting for around 771,098m² of that total.

Meanwhile Cape Town and Ethekwini’s (Durban) formal retail space measures roughly 2.6 million m² and 1.7 million m² respectively. Wilson adds that the City of Tshwane has the highest formal shopping centre density compared to other major cities in the country, with 955m² of formal retail space available per 1,000 people followed closely by the City of Johannesburg with 900m²/1,000 people, the City of Cape Town with 681m²/1,000 people and eThekwini with 473m²/1,000 people.