By TOM MAPHAM

CONSTRUCTION work on a regional shopping mall at East London’s Hemingways Casino is set to begin this month.
Yesterday, developer Sisa Ngebulana of Billion Group announced his company’s commitment to building the four-storey shopping mall at an estimated cost of over R800 million.
He said that, with 65 percent of the mall signed to large anchor tenants, he was comfortable that construction could begin.
“We are excited to be able to make this step,” he said.
The planned 60 000m² mall will dwarf East London’s existing Vincent Park and Beacon Bay Retail Park shopping centres. The planned opening date for the new mall is April 2009.
Ngebulana said construction would begin as soon as a temporary access road to the casino was built. This process he hopes to complete within nine weeks.
At a sod-turning ceremony yesterday he said the new mall announced bold figures for the development. Every year it would add R1,7 billion turnover to East London’s economy. It would create 2 000 permanent jobs with combined monthly salaries worth R6m.
“It will be a national showcase, and the local economic benefits will be substantial,” he said.
While Ngebulana put on his hard hat, two competing developers who also have proposed regional malls did not express concern.
Both said they saw strong growth potential in Gonubie where their properties are located.
Ronnie Sevitz, of Investec’s Growth-point property fund, said there was only room for one regional mall in East London but remained confident that retailer valued Gonubie over the Hemingway’s site.
“It is easy to make an announcement, I need to see this happen,” he said.
However he said his group was “toying with the idea” of building a smaller lifestyle centre at their Gonubie site before proceeding with the shopping mall they had planned in the future.
“In development, plans are always fluid,” he said.
The second competing development, Gerhardt Jooste, said his plans to build a shopping mall had been put on hold.
He added that if the Hemingway’s project went ahead it would “probably kill off our competition in Gonubie”.
He said other residential and commercial developments would go ahead on the large site on the corner of the N2 highway and Gonubie Main Road.
Jooste congradulated Ngebulana, who is major shareholder in his company’s property investment fund.
“We back him in whatever he does,” he said.