The precinct plan falls under the Louis Botha Development Corridor to facilitate a visibly improved public environment and develop non-motorised transport facilities to create an integral precinct. The promenade extends along Athol Street, starting from St Mary’s High School and ending at Campbell Street before Louis Botha Avenue.

Pedestrian safety has been an issue along Athol Street. Many pupils use the street to reach Louis Botha Avenue, where taxi drop-off and pick-up points are, and the schools are west and east of the main road.

The scope of work for the Balfour Park Student Promenade project included:

• Public environment upgrades

• Hard & soft landscaping

• Kerbing and channelling

•          Sidewalks and paving

• Traffic-calming measures

• Public art

The project is in line with the objective of the JDA to regenerate decaying areas of Johannesburg to enhance its ability to contribute to the economic development of the City and the quality of life of its residents, said MMC for Development Planning Cllr Belinda Echeozonjoku.

When developing public space JDA aligns feeling safe with an appreciation for developing a colourful City. The continued rollout of its public art programme, ArtMyJozi, a place-making through art initiative implemented along the transit-oriented development corridors, undertook the beautification of the Balfour Park Student Promenade with the installation of public art.

The ArtMyJozi team began work on the Student Promenade in March 2022. The team installed a series of murals and mosaics on urban furniture and artworks on lighting features.

In 2018, the ArtMyJozi team conducted workshops with St Mary’s Junior and Senior School, Waverly Girls, and Northview High School. The themes of pedestrian safety and visibility, social connectivity, identity, vernacular visual language, and multifunctional spaces.

This year, the ArtMyJozi also held workshops around similar themes with Atholton Pre-Primary School and St Mary’s School. The outcomes from these workshops have gone through a graphic design process and applied to the various urban elements defining the Student Promenade upgrade.

The large mural on the boundary wall of the new Flex development represents a distillation of the pupils’ embodiment of those ideas. The murals are a marker and record of the conceptual work done in 2018 as it is an enlivening intervention on that stretch of the upgrade area.

The Balfour Park Student Promenade supplements the various developments that have been taking place in the Louis Botha Corridor, including Orchards Clinic, the Rea Vaya Phase 1C rollout and the recently completed Paterson Park Multipurpose Centre.