Century City is a suburb of

Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. It is a

mixed-use development Mixed use is a type of urban development, urban design, urban planning and/or a zoning classification that blends multiple uses, such as residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, or entertainment, into one space, where those functions ...

, which includes entertainment, residential, retail, and commercial components. The neighborhood is located 10 km to the north-east of Cape Town CBD, along the N1 freeway, and is traversed by numerous waterways, wetlands, and canals.

Development

Development began under Monex Development in 1997 and continues under the new owners, Rabie Property Group. Century City's original developments were the Ratanga Junction theme park and Canal Walk shopping centre. When it was opened in October 2000, Canal Walk was the largest shopping mall in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

and the Southern Hemisphere in lettable area at 141,000 m². The Ratanga Junction theme park closed in May 2018 after many years of financial problems. The site was redeveloped and was replaced by Ratanga Park (a recreational park), as well as numerous residential developments.

Canal Walk

The Canal Walk

shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a large indoor shopping center, usually Anchor tenant, anchored by department stores. The term ''mall'' originally meant pedestrian zone, a pedestrian promenade with shops along it, but in the late 1960s, i ...

is a major development within the suburb. It is the largest mall in Cape Town and the third largest in

, with over 400 stores, over 8,000 parking bays, a wide variety of restaurants, and an

arcade Arcade most often refers to: * Arcade game, a coin-operated video, pinball, electro-mechanical, redemption, etc., game ** Arcade video game, a coin-operated video game ** Arcade cabinet, housing which holds an arcade video game's hardware ** Arcad ...

Conservation

Built on a wetland area, Century City needed to comply with conservation measures. Intaka Island is a 16 hectare

wetland A wetland is a distinct semi-aquatic ecosystem whose groundcovers are flooded or saturated in water, either permanently, for years or decades, or only seasonally. Flooding results in oxygen-poor ( anoxic) processes taking place, especially ...

area within the development. The wetland naturally cleans the water in the canals in the high-density development area.

Criticism

There were concerns that Century City would cause decentralisation from the

central business district A central business district (CBD) is the Commerce, commercial and business center of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides wit ...

(CBD), but thanks to the city improvement district (CID) and urban renewal efforts spearheaded by the Cape Town Partnership (CTP), this has not happened. This development thus remains another commercial node in the Cape Town metropolitan area while the city centre remains vibrant. More recently, the development has been criticized for causing traffic problems. Measures have been taken with an aim to improve congestion during peak hours.

References

{{Cape Town, communities Suburbs of Cape Town