The Member of the Mayoral Committee for Development Planning in the City of Johannesburg, Cllr Belinda Echeozonjoku, and Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) Chief Executive Officer Mokgema Mongane conducted oversight of the public environment upgrades that JDA has undertaken in the Gandhi Square East Precinct on Monday, 26 September.
The Gandhi Square East precinct has seen many development initiatives recently, including the investment of Absa Towers Main building, Jewel City and Afhco developments.
Most recent development news in the precinct also saw Transnet looking to redevelop the Carlton Centre in the 2022/23 financial year. The City plans to invest over R800 million in capital projects into Region F, which encompasses the Inner City.
The vision for the Gandhi Square East Precinct is to create an economically viable, functional, and integrated inner-city precinct of developmental and socio-economic strategies and programmes.
This vision is a step closer to being realised after the JDA completed the public environment upgrade of Main Street as part of the Gandhi Square East Precinct urban development framework. The agency also upgraded Portplein Park as part of the scope of works.
“It’s pleasing to see efforts to build a better city by JDA bearing fruit at Gandhi Square East Public, and I look forward to seeing-further progress and upgrades in the inner city,” said Cllr Echeozonjoku.
“I think we have many success stories of the amazing work done by JDA in the inner city. The JDA empowers SMMEs and provides quality work in public environment upgrade projects. These inner-city public environment upgrades are an example of collaboration between different departments,” she said.
For this project to be successful, it requires extensive stakeholder engagement with Absa, the anchor tenant in the precinct, Olitzky Property Holdings, Diversity, Inner City Partnership Fund, Transnet, the Ward 124 Councillors and the public.
The JDA’s objective is to deliver this public infrastructure project using labour-intensive methods with the aim of job creation and income generation through an Expanded Public Works Programme approach. A total of 12 SMMEs were on the project, and the total SMME expenditure was approximately 33%, exceeding the City’s policy.
27/09/2022