August 6 2026 14:30
The female team behind high-end developer, Abcon – Kutlwano Mhlanga, Lee-Anne Mamarake Johnson, Kelly Applewhite, Caley May, Monique Pieterse
How Caley May Is Rewiring a 40-Year-Old Property Brand
By the time Caley May walks a prospective tenant through one of Abcon’s developments, she has usually already sold them something else entirely: a version of how they want to spend their Tuesday afternoon. Not in square metres but in lifestyle.
“We are essentially selling lifestyles to everyone, be it how and where they work, shop or play,” says May, who is Group Marketing Manager at Abcon, the Johannesburg-based property group that has been developing commercial, retail, industrial and mixed-use real estate since 1981. “When I joined Abcon I built a new marketing team which could bring a creative edge to the brand.”
It is a distinction that matters more than it sounds. South African property marketing has historically leaned on a fairly narrow script: renderings of glass facades, GLA figures, anchor tenant logos and a quote about “vision.” May’s pitch is that a 44-year-old developer competing for tenants and investors in Sandton, Fourways, Waterfall and Pretoria can no longer rely on that script alone, particularly when the audience walking through its precincts is getting younger.
“Property chose me. I have attained so many skills across different industries and am blessed to have been working at one of SA’s longest run property companies for the past three years. Abcon has operated for 40 years, and maintaining and developing its brand is challenging in a competitive market but also rewarding.”
May did not arrive in real estate by the conventional route. Her early career was built in newspaper advertising, then took a detour into the casino industry during the 2010 FIFA World Cup, a period that put her in front of large volumes of visitors with very short attention spans and very high expectations, not unlike shopping centre customers today.
“I bring a jack of all trades approach to real estate, which helps me to get the best results for the brand,” she says.
That range shows up in how deliberately un-corporate Abcon’s recent marketing has felt. Rather than positioning itself as a faceless institutional landlord, the group has increasingly put people, not floor plans, at the centre of its story.
Sandton Gate Central, the group’s newest precinct on Winnie Mandela Drive, was marketed around the idea of “Time Well Lived” and fronted by the four women, from Abcon’s own development lead to the architect, brand strategist and leasing head, who shaped it, rather than around square-metre counts alone.
Sandton Gate Central
Leaping Frog Retail Centre in Fourways won a national SACSC design award for its redevelopment. Loftus Park in Pretoria is being repositioned around sports medicine and wellness rather than simply “more office space.” Fleurhof Mall is being framed as an economic bridge between Soweto and Roodepoort. None of these are conventional property stories. They are community, design and culture stories that happen to be anchored to buildings.
“It’s exciting to work at a private group which allows me to work with freedom and not be tied down by red tape,” May says.
Waterfall Walk, Midrand
Part of what makes the brief harder, and more interesting, is who Abcon is now trying to reach. Gen Z shoppers and tenants did not grow up with the destination shopping-mall model that defined South African retail for three decades; they expect walkable precincts, hospitality-led experiences and digital-first engagement, and they are famously unmoved by traditional advertising. May’s answer has been to lean into precinct-level storytelling that treats each Abcon development less like a portfolio asset and more like a neighbourhood with its own identity: the Braamfontein Spruit green belt threaded through Sandton Gate, the piazza culture built around match days at Loftus Versfeld, the family-friendly play areas at Leaping Frog.
MonteCircle, Fourways
alistair@propertyflash.co.za
