Architect and Builder Magazine South Africa March/April 2014 | Page 43
Retail Principles
In doing so, it gave rise to the opportunity to
express the building to a very active Uitenhage
Road, resulting in good retail principles being
applied, some of which are: that the entrances
and parking must be visible from the main
roads, the parking has a natural flow and service
areas are hidden behind the building with
separate access.
The overall dynamic of the building is further
scaled in relation to the existing surrounding
industrial context with specific emphasis on
the main entrances to the mall through large
entrance porticos that, on one hand, mitigate
the scale of the existing surrounding industrial
buildings and, on the other, enhance the retail
offering it provides.
The distributions of different tenants, with
an emphasis on food tenants at strategic
positions such as the main entrance, further
enhance the experience of a pedestrianised
retail node.
Kenako Mall
Tenants
Kenako Mall is anchored by Shoprite and other
tenants include Hungry Lion, Shoprite Liquor,
Pep, Mr Price, Truworths, Clicks, Jet, Identity,
Legit, Edgars Active, Standard Bank, Fashion IQ,
FNB, Cashbuild, Tekkie Town, OK Furniture’s,
Morkels, Bears, Debonairs, Chesenyama,
Cassies, Ellerines, the Post Office, McDonalds
and many other smaller chains totalling a gross
leasable area (GLA) of 20,000m2, a dedicated
taxi area and 995 parking bays to satisfy the
need for convenience shopping.
Research done for the
development indicated
a catchment area of
340,000 customers
and an estimated retail
potential of R1.22 billion
at the time it was done
Design
The massing on site with its future phase 2 will
eventually achieve a mix of the required retail
visibility and road edge definition. During the
design stages, the shed-like building typology,
with its very long walkway, created a loss of
scale wherein it would have been difficult to
identify with ones relevant location and one
would only have known where one was if one
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