Mall of Africa is a shopping mall located in Waterfall City,

Midrand Midrand is a former municipality in central Gauteng, South Africa. It is situated in-between Centurion and Sandton and now forms part of the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality. History Midrand was established as a municipality in 1 ...

Gauteng Gauteng ( ) is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. The name in Sotho-Tswana languages means 'place of gold'. Situated on the Highveld, Gauteng is the smallest province by land area in South Africa. Although Gauteng accounts for only ...

. It is the third largest single-phase shopping mall to be built in Africa, but smaller than Gateway,

Sandton City Sandton City is a large shopping mall situated in Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa. It was built and owned by property development company Rapp and Maister, in partnership with brothers Hilliard and Eli Leibowitz, and was later taken over by ...

, Menlyn Park and

Fourways Mall Fourways Mall is a shopping mall in South Africa located in the Fourways area of Sandton, in suburban Johannesburg. It doubled its size, from 85,000m² to 178,000m², relaunching in 2019 The shopping mall consists of over 400 stores, a two-level ...

. The total retail area is 130 000 square metres. The shopping mall has two main levels of shopping as well as an outdoor restaurant plaza which connects directly to the Waterfall City Park.

History

Mall of Africa was incepted to be the centrepiece of Waterfall City, an upcoming mixed-use development located in

. Located between

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Dem ...

and

Pretoria Pretoria () is South Africa's administrative capital, serving as the seat of the executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to South Africa. Pretoria straddles the Apies River and extends eastward into the foot ...

the Mall and Waterfall is easily accessible to most of Gauteng. Construction began in 2012 and was originally planned to open in March 2016, but was later slated to April 2016.

Opening day events

The mall was opened to the public on 28 April 2016 and resulted in heavy traffic congestion along the N1, N3

highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks. In some areas of the United States, it is used as an equivalent term to controlled-acces ...

s as well as most roads leading towards the Midrand area. Some stores had opening day sales that drew hundreds of shoppers into queues extending around the corners of the shops entrance, this led to some shoppers questioning if the shops were prepared for the opening.

Tenants

Mall of Africa has anchor tenants including departmental store Woolworths and hypermarkets Game and

Checkers Hyper Checkers (American English), also known as draughts (; British English), is a group of strategy board games for two players which involve diagonal moves of uniform game pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over opponent pieces. Checkers i ...

. The shopping mall also has house flagship stores in South Africa for international brands such as H&M,

Cotton On Cotton On Group is Australia's largest global retailer, known for its fashion clothing and stationery brands. As of 2020, it has over 1,500 stores in 18 countries employing 22,000 people across seven brands: Cotton On, Cotton On Kids, Cotton O ...

and Forever 21. As well as introducing new brands to South Africa like Starbucks, Mango Man, The Kooples, Boutique Adela,

Zara Home Zara Home is a company that belongs to the Spanish Inditex group dedicated to the manufacturing of home textiles. It was created in 2003. It has around 408 stores in 44 countries. The company focuses on retailing various housewares. The headqua ...

, Armani Exchange,

Under Armour Under Armour, Inc. is an American sports equipment company that manufactures footwear, sports and casual apparel. Under Armour's global headquarters are located in Baltimore, Maryland, with additional offices located in Amsterdam (European head ...

and Interoptika.

Design

The mall design was inspired by Africa's geological features, as evident by its courts. The Crystal Court is located in the Northern Section of the mall, representing Southern Africa's mineral wealth with sharp geometric patterns. The Great Lakes Court is located the Eastern Section of the mall, representing the Great Lakes mostly of East Africa and has calm and gentle materials used. The Desert Court is located in the Southern Section of the mall, representing the Sahara Desert of North Africa and has calm motifs used in traditional Berber carpets. The Oleum Court is located in the Western Section of the mall, representing West Africa's Oil wealth. The Forest Walk Court is in the center of the shopping mall, representing Central Africa and its rain forests.

References

{{Reflist

External links

* http://waterfallcity.co.za/portfolio-item/mall-of-africa/ * http://www.atterbury.co.za/portfolio-items/mall-of-africa/ * http://www.mallofafrica.co.za/ Shopping centres in Johannesburg Johannesburg Region A