The Michelangelo Hotel, one of the Sandton area’s premier tenants has stopped operating, leaving business people and Sandtonites bemused.
The development which was built in 2003 closed in 2020 in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. It was highly popular in the early 2000s especially for high-end business meetings and events. Later in 2010, it also housed international sport stars and tourists as South Africa hosted the 2010 Football World Cup.
But things don’t seem so rosy now. The editor of Property Flash recently had a meeting there and found the hotel and its support functions including a restaurant were all closed. Insiders say that Legacy Group which developed The Michelangelo and later The Rafael and The Leonardo, is in a dispute with the Ensemble group, a shareholder in Legacy. Ensemble which is owned by the Libyan African Arab Investment Corp, owns the hotel.
Legacy’s Leonardo, which is the tallest building in Africa, has been slow to sell apartments including its top-end penthouses. The developer Bart Dorrestein had priced the premium penthouse on top of the building, at R250m.
Please note that The Michelangelo is owned by Ensemble and is not owned or managed by Premier Hotels Group.