The much anticipated Radisson Blu Hotel in Cape Town is set to open in Cape Town in the course of this year.
Stonehill Property Fund, a land owner, and South African developer Signatura are already furnishing the upper floors of the office building, formerly known as Safmarine House, which is easily recognized by its flamed and polished granite exterior.
The original cost of building; the glass, granite and concrete modern high-rise amounts to $6m, with the current investment for the property summing up to R1bn.
Stonehill has also commissioned the development of the lower floors into a five-star hotel which will be operated by Swedish group Carlson Rezidor as their flagship, Radisson Blu Hotel.
The first 11 floors are receiving a reconstruction into the Radisson Blu Hotel and floors 12-23 will house up to 170 sectional title, one and two bedroom (40-88m²) apartments.
“With the rapid growth of the hospitality and residential sector, we are taking advantage of the current market upsurge to turn around this development within the year,” says Derick Henstra, executive chairman of dhk architects.
The development comprises the Radisson Blu Hotel, residential apartments and penthouses.
According to dhk associate director, Brinley Pritchard, the apartments and penthouses will be ready for occupation by the end of October 2016, with the Radisson Blu and three bedroom penthouses following later in the year.
Current construction is proceeding over several floors in a staged programme, with estimated completion dates also staged over three months, beginning in June 2016 with four floors, another four floors from July and the final three floors from August.
Juan Bernicchi, director of Bernicchi Architects says converting the building into more private and comfortable living spaces has been a key challenge given the nature of the city offices which are often noisy due to their direct interface with surrounding activities.
“We’ve worked closely with our engineers to achieve the ultimate comfort within the apartments,” says Bernicchi.
Construction group JW Hugo has confirmed initial demolishing and are already on the ground working on nine floors and building walls in a bid to complete the first fix services which include heating, ventilation and air conditioning, plumbing, fire and mechanical work.
Hugo says that apart from the shell of the building and the lifts, all aspects of the apartments will be newly built with services being stripped before they can start from scratch on the new apartment layout.
Murray & Roberts, which built the original high-rise in the early 1990s, is the same firm undertaking the construction of the Radisson Blue Hotel.
Murray & Roberts’ Dave Heron says no major modifications will be required to accommodate the hotel requirements. He concludes that the basic services namely water, air conditioning and electricity are already in place to meet most of the new requirements.
