V&A Waterfront reports business boom times
● Business activity at Cape Town’s Victoria and Alfred Waterfront makes up close to 2% of the Western Cape’s economy and contributes R31.5bn to GDP, according to an economic impact study released by the Waterfront this week.
Plans to develop a service industry for superyachts, continued growth of the cruiseliner terminal and hopes the visa regime will become simpler are expected to further boost growth at the iconic development.
The fourth edition of the biennial impact study analysed the V&A’s performance in the two-year period immediately prior to the tourism slump in mid-2018, at the time of Cape Town’s “Day Zero” water crisis.
It highlighted significant increases in direct employment and retail business, with economic growth leaping 13.5% during 2017 — dwarfing national growth of 1.5% and provincial growth of just 0.5%.
The V&A’s contribution to the provincial economy increased to 1.6% in the 2017/2018 financial year — up from 1.1% in 2005 and 1.3% in 2015 — after strong turnover growth and enterprise development.
V&A CEO David Green singled out enterprise development as a particularly pleasing aspect of the latest impact report: “We put a lot of focus on that because that is where the jobs will come from going forward.”
He said the growth of office and residential development showed the V&A had created “an environment where people want to come to work and live”.
These developments also ensured the area remained vibrant and diverse, he said.
A simpler and more efficient tourist visa regime, as well as the continued growth of the cruise-liner terminal, would further bolster Cape Town’s already strong tourist brand, he said.
The report says: “There has been a spectacular increase in economic activity at the V&A Waterfront. This has been driven particularly through developments at the new Silo and Canal districts ... the recent increase in economic contribution eclipses all previous changes at the V&A Waterfront.”
Any impact of the 15%-20% drop in tourism around Day Zero would only be reflected in the next impact report.
The Silo District, opened in 2017, has expanded the V&A’s retail footprint and added a new global draw card in the form of Africa’s largest art museum, the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa.
The 8.4ha Canal District is a mixed-use development that includes a hotel, film studio and urban park built around the remnants of the historical Amsterdam Battery. Other positives in the report include:
● Direct employment has grown to 23,000 jobs, a 4.7% annual increase from the 20,742 jobs in 2016;
● Total jobs (including tenants and their employees) has increased 8.5% annually since 2016 to 66,043; and
● Revenue from enterprise development shot up to R329m in 2018 — partly due to the hugely successful Oranjezicht City Farm Market — more than double the R139m generated in 2015.
Another notable feature of recent growth is the rapid increase in commercial office space, which now makes up 25% of all gross lettable area.
The V&A this week also confirmed it was seeking to attract more boat builders and superyachts by offering more attractive berthing packages. “If we could draw the superyachts here that would be a whole new industry, and we already have the expertise that can deal with that kind of refurbishment and maintenance,” V&A marine and industrial executive manager Andre Blaine said.