The hotel is situated at the entrance to property developer and investor Attacq’s mixed-use Waterfall City development between Johannesburg and Pretoria.
Atterbury Group’s Attacq, which is to list on Monday, plans to develop the Waterfall node during the next 10 to 15 years. Waterfall includes 1.73-million square metres of developable land, which will include the 116,000m² Mall of Africa and the Waterfall Business Estate.
City Lodge Waterfall City will be the second time the City Lodge group has partnered with Atterbury Property Developments, which is part of Attacq.
The groups previously partnered to develop City Lodge Lynnwood, which opened in 2010.
The hotel will also be City Lodge group’s 56th hotel, and will lift its overall room numbers to 6,905 across South Africa, Kenya and Botswana.
"The hotel is being developed as part of a long-term land and building lease agreement with a total development value of about R130m, R40m of which will be furniture, fittings and equipment, paid for by City Lodge," the group said.
City Lodge said the hotel, which would comprise a ground floor and four upper levels, "will ideally complement the City Lodge Hotel Group’s successful 118-room Town Lodge Midrand, situated less than 1km away within the Waterfall Park office complex".
City Lodge CE Clifford Ross said the hotel would be the group’s first new hotel in South Africa since 2010. "We believe there is a great future for Waterfall City, which will be an important new development node linking Midrand to the northern Johannesburg area," Mr Ross said.
City Lodge is also targeting further expansion opportunities in East, West and Southern Africa. The group also recently announced that it would be developing a 90-room Road Lodge in Pietermaritzburg.
South Africa has experienced limited hotel development activity since 2010 as it has been struggling through a period of oversupply following a number of developments ahead of soccer’s 2010 World Cup.
However, industry pundits believe opportunities are returning to the market, although new developments would have to be well calculated and within key nodes.
Source: BD
