CAPE TOWN – Liberty Two Degrees’ (L2D) retail environments continued to gain trading momentum since the end of July, given their unique locations and tenant mix, the commercial property group said in a trading update on Friday.
L2D was also developing a “seamless customer journey”, referred to as Noline, that would retain and grow its customer base, which would entail the merging of online shopping with bricks and mortar retailing in collaboration with tenants.
Trading densities across most centres improved, with Sandton City and Botshabelo reporting significant growth of 7.9 percent and 11.2 percent, respectively. Nelson Mandela Square turned around with 6.5 percent growth versus -1.3 percent for December 2018.
The overall portfolio vacancy rate of 4.6 percent was largely due to the office sector. The retail vacancy as at July 2019 was 2.3 percent, a marginal improvement versus 2.4 percent reported as at June 2019, but which was well ahead of the South African Property Owners Association’s (Sapoa) first quarter retail vacancy of 4.2 percent.
The office vacancy rate of 9.8 percent was also ahead of Sapoa’s second quarter office vacancy of 11.3 percent.