Sometimes you need to just wait…..

What to do with an old quarry?

It was February 2003. The old quarry next to Durban road, not far from Tygervalley Shopping Centre, was for sale. The developer of High Street, Late Lambertus Van Zyl (Propergation Estate), decided to sell portions of the site to developers.

The location was perfect, but it was a complicated site and the price was too high. I decided that it was not worthwhile pursuing the development. In the next three months I received two phone calls from Graham Power, asking me if I don’t think it is worthwhile purchasing the development. Again, I looked at all the details and told Graham that it will not work as the risk associate with such a larger scheme is too high. Graham did not leave it there and again I received a phone call from the CEO of Power Developments, Stefan Bothma, asking me to please again have a look

About a week later, I attended an event at the Artscape Theatre on invitation of one of the Bank Groups. I ended up sitting next to a man who introduced himself as Lambertus Van Zyl. He immediately took the opportunity to ask me if I know he is selling the development opportunity, on which I replied yes, but it is too expensive. He then asked if we are not interested in joining him as co-developer and he will make the land available.

The Monday morning, Lambertus and I concluded a co-development deal, but I had one condition, Power must be a partner. So, I negotiated that we will be 3 partners each with 33,3% shareholding. I phoned Stefan Bothma the next day and ask him what developments they are busy with. On which I replied that I am going to be very busy in the next 12 months with a project in Durbanville. I told him that he will not know the project but is an old quarry next to Durban Road.

I could hear how he was getting red in the face and he immediately said, that is the land both Graham and myself phone you about. I replied with “ NO you never asked about that !”

He was at the point of exploding and I quickly responded: “Stefan pls tell Graham that I have negotiated a third share for Power”

The 28 000m2 development was large and included 192 apartments, 22 freestanding houses and 10 000 m2 of offices. It was the size of project that we were more comfortable with splitting the risk by keeping the landowner involved and were the expertise of the Power Group regarding the major civil works also contributed a lot.

With Kanonberg Lifestyle Estate completed, I was looking for an opportunity to do a higher density lifestyle village. On advice of Dennis Moss we went on a European tour studying old villages. It was an amazing trip and Piet Engelbrect from Ibeesa and the engineer Pieter Rousseau joined us.

In 1998 Neno Haasbroek in the first meeting I had with him, told me that I will never understand developments fully, if I don’t study the book, Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander. The book was written based on case studies done in old villages around the world and Christopher focused on various Patterns and the reasoning behind it.

I was extremely excited to visit Europe and look at why there was such a special appeal in some of the old villages. Out of this tour we finalized the final details of the new development in the old quarry, Bella Rosa.

This was one of the first high density developments integrating a club house with a gymnasium and swimming. It was the first high density mix use lifestyle Village in South Africa.

The project had its challenges of which the huge super basement structure was challenge number one. To lift the commercial section out of the old quarry, we had to build a super semi basement structure of three levels. These structures can have a major impact on cash flow timing and I am these days following the principle of “keep it simple” !

But besides the challenges, Bella Rosa is today, 16 years later, still a special place with a lot of memories. Unfortunately, Lambertus Van Zyl passed away in 2018, and I need to acknowledge the big part he played in contributing his land and driving the project. Thank you Graham Power for keep on asking and the great JV partners you were !

#Bellarosa