Cape Town - With less than a year to go until its doors open, queries to host events at the Century City Conference Centre, worth about R63 million, are streaming in and “growing on a daily basis”.
The new centre, with its capacity for 1 900 guests across 20 venues, forms part of Century City’s R1bn mixed-use Century City Urban Square development.
Glyn Taylor, chief executive of the conference centre and the new 125-room hotel, said the facility had been designed to complement the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) and to “add to the allure” of Cape Town as the top conference city in Africa.
He said the investment by Rabie Property Group showed an understanding of the “longevity and sustainability of business travel”.
The development has been welcomed by Wesgro as a project that will further enhance the offering of the province for meeting venues and events. “Cape Town and the Western Cape has an increasingly excellent reputation as a business events destination and is currently still the number one conference destination in Africa,” said Corne Koch, head of the Cape Town and Western Cape Convention Bureau of Wesgro.
Greg Deans, a director of Rabie Property Group, has said there was a “soaring demand” for conference space and hotels in the burgeoning precinct. The urban square will also include The Annex, a four-storey office space above the conference centre and The Matrix, a mixed-use building with 51 residential units.
The centre will have flexible configurations to cater for different events, and will provide efficient fibre optic and wireless connectivity.
The building has been designed to be energy-efficient in line with the new four-star, mixed-use Green Building Council of South Africa rating.
This includes attention to the air quality and indoor pollutants, thermal comfort, access to daylight and natural lighting, and sound levels. Pedestrian access is paramount and the centre has been designed to create a seamless interface between the buildings and the public square.
Century City is the third-largest commercial precinct in Cape Town, and its conferencing facilities will augment the expansion of the CTICC, expected to be ready in early 2017. The second phase of this project will double the CTICC’s current capacity.
The CTICC contributed R3.1bn to the national gross domestic product in the 2013/14 financial year and has set a target to be the best long-haul convention centre by 2020.
Cape Argus