A convenience shopping centre, Boardwalk Mall is set to relaunch in Gqeberha, Eastern Cape, giving shoppers access to an array of shops to meet their daily needs and then some.
The 24 000m2 revamped Boardwalk Mall will have its grand opening on September 22. This is a key project for Flanagan & Gerard, developers with decades of experience, and Emfuleni Resorts, a subsidiary of Sun International.
The mall represents the extension and upgrade of the Boardwalk Precinct around the landmark Boardwalk Casino and Entertainment World in Summerstrand in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro. The mall will feature 92 stores, 30 of which opened in the first phase in March 2022.
The mall is anchored by the first Checkers, Woolworths Food and Dis-Chem stores in its area. The offering is complemented by a Pick ‘n Pay and Clicks, plus the latest VIP cinema upgrade from NuMetro.
The mall will also have a 2,500 m2 open arena; the multi-functional Sunpark events arena. This will include screens, a fountain, restaurants spilling out onto the square, a variety of coffee shops, dining and a Magic Company gaming arcade.
Paul Gerard, MD of Flanagan & Gerard said it was a rare and special event to open a new mall in a competitive retail environment in SA: “We are incredibly excited about the opening of Boardwalk Mall,” he said.
“While we first identified the potential of this development over a decade ago, it was in early 2019 that we presented a plan to Sun International to create a dominant high-end convenience centre for Summerstrand that introduced many major retailers not yet in the area, but for which there was a big demand from the thriving local community,” he said.
The mall lies opposite the Blue Flag Hobie Beach, adjacent to the 6,000m2 Boardwalk Casino and the 140-room, 5-star Boardwalk Hotel. Construction of the single-level Boardwalk Mall was ready to commence in February 2020 but was delayed by the pandemic lockdowns.
Demolition and bulk earthworks were finally able to get underway from February to April 2021, and construction began in May 2021. The first phase of Boardwalk Mall opened on March 24 2022, and the grand opening of this retail, lifestyle and entertainment mall is on Thursday, September 22 2022.
Anthony Leeming, CEO of Sun International said the redevelopment of the Boardwalk Mall had been in the planning stage for a number of years and despite all the challenges over the past few years, his team was proud to be opening the final phase of the redeveloped Mall.
“The Boardwalk Mall promises to bring to Gqeberha a world-class convenience shopping and entertainment destination which is sorely missing in the Summerstrand precinct. I would like to thank our partners in Emfuleni, Zonwabise, and our partners in the mall, Flanagan & Gerard, for making the redevelopment of the mall a reality,” he said.
The mall’s design was completed by MDS Architecture “to integrate into the existing Boardwalk Precinct architecture using a contemporary interpretation of the current style with design features like the shape of the roofs and an aesthetic of a refurbished dockside building,” according to Gerrard.
“Internally, chic industrial elements include exposed structural details and tactile materials,” he said.
The mall has more than 1,000 public parking bays and provides reserved parking bays for shoppers with special needs close to its entrances. It has dedicated tenant parking and a taxi drop-off and pick-up zone.