Pretria - A new 6 000 m² bespoke advocates chambers office building is being developed at a cost of about R270 million by property developer Atterbury in The Club precinct in Hazelwood in Pretoria for about 120 advocates.
Atterbury, together with developments currently in progress and those completed in the past few years, has invested more than R1billion in developments in the modern live-work-play urban precinct close to the Pretoria Country Club.
Wiehan Strydom, the development manager at Atterbury, said on Friday that construction on The Club Advocates' Chambers in Pretoria had commenced in October last year and the building was scheduled to be completed by November this year.
Strydom said the advocates chambers would comprise four levels, make provision for about 470 parking bays and give advocates the option of sectional title ownership of their offices.
He said the advocates chambers building would only be occupied by advocates, who would be given naming rights for the building.
The advocates chambers' building is the fourth of five buildings that will ultimately make up The Club precinct.
Strydom said Atterbury invested about R200 million in the Club 1 and R330 million in Club 2 developments in the precinct.
These first two developments comprise a mixture of retail, restaurants and offices.
Strydom said simultaneously with the development of the advocates chambers, Atterbury was building a 4000m² medical building across the road from the advocates chambers.
He said construction on this medical building commenced in November and it would be completed in April 2018.
Strydom said it would comprise three levels and involved an investment of about R130 million.
He said Atterbury was also developing a 3 000 m² two-storey gymnasium for Planet Fitness in the precinct at the corner of 18th Street and Pinaster Avenue.
Three levels of offices that will provide 2 800 m² of offices at the other side of the site also formed part of this development, which involved an investment of about R132 million, he said.
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Ilse Vermaak-Hay, an advocate at the Pretoria Bar and currently at the Brooklyn Advocate Chambers, is one of the advocates who will move to The Club Advocates' Chambers and has been an important part of creating this opportunity for the legal community.
“We wanted an alternative for chambers outside the CBD that also provided the ability for advocates to own their offices.
“While we found many rental-only options, there were no suitable offices available for purchase, so we considered another new development project in Groenkloof, but nothing came of it. That is when advocate Etienne Coetzee, SC, approached Atterbury and the idea for The Club Advocates’ Chambers was born,” she said.
Vermaak-Hay added that the The Club Advocates' Chambers would have a prime position in Hazelwood and represented a good investment proposition because of its a great location with easy access to the High Court in the Pretoria CBD and the Brooklyn, Groenkloof, Menlyn and surrounding areas.