Eastgate Shopping Centre is a super-regional shopping centre in

Bedfordview Bedfordview is an affluent suburb in western Ekurhuleni, sharing an administrative boundary with the City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality, Gauteng, South Africa. Bedfordview has been part of the City of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipalit ...

, near Bedford Gardens and the

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

city centre in

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

. It remains one of the largest centres in the country and is the fourth largest shopping centre in

, after

Mall of Africa Mall of Africa is a shopping mall located in Waterfall City, Midrand, Gauteng. It is the third largest single-phase shopping mall to be built in Africa, The mall has 130,000 square meters of total retail area. Mall of Africa has two main leve ...

Sandton City Sandton City is a large shopping centre situated in Sandton, Gauteng, 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 ...

and

Menlyn Park Menlyn Park Shopping Centre is a large shopping mall in Menlyn, Pretoria, South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, n ...

. The centre lies next to the R24 airport freeway, between the

Johannesburg CBD The Johannesburg Central Business District, commonly called Johannesburg CBD, is one of the main business centres of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is the densest collection of skyscrapers in Africa, however, due to white flight and urban blight, ...

to the west and

O. R. Tambo International Airport O. R. Tambo International Airport is an international airport serving the twin cities of Johannesburg and the main capital of South Africa, Pretoria. It is situated in Kempton Park, Gauteng, Kempton Park, Gauteng. It serves as the primary air ...

to the east.

History

Eastgate was

's first 'super-regional'

shopping centre A shopping center in American English, shopping centre in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English (see American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, spelling differences), shopping complex, shopping arcade, ...

. The decision to build Eastgate was taken in 1974 by Rapp & Maister. It was to be built on an 18 ha site with 5 ha inside the Johannesburg municipality while the other 13 ha was in Bedfordview. It was planned to be opened in 1978 and would have 90,000sqm of retail space with major tenants being OK Bazaars, Edgars, Woolworths, Greatermans and John Orrs. There would be another 180 smaller stores, four cinemas and 5,000 parking bays. When it opened in 1979, it was the largest shopping centre in the southern hemisphere.

Further upgrades

A expansion was completed in 2010, which brings Eastgate to over . A few years later, the centre underwent another major redevelopment by Liberty Life to modernise both the retail and office components, which was completed in 2017. To this day, it is managed by Liberty Properties on behalf of the parent company, Liberty Holdings Limited. The centre is currently over . Eastgate Shopping Centre is frequented by over 80,000 shoppers on Saturdays and over 2 million shoppers during an average month. The shopping centre offers

Bureau de change A bureau de change (plural bureaux de change, both ; British English) or currency exchange (Comparison of American and British English, American English) is a business where people can exchange one currency for another. Nomenclature Original ...

facilities. Major retailers include one of the most successful Woolworths in South Africa and a recently refurbished cinema complex. The centre has over 250 stores, which include more than 60 fashion boutiques and 13 jewellers. Unusual for a single complex, the building straddled the municipal boundaries of the

City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality The City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality () is a metropolitan municipality that manages the local governance of Johannesburg, the largest city in South Africa. It is divided into several branches and departments in order to expedite se ...

and

Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality The City of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (; ; ; ) is a metropolitan municipality that forms the local government of the East Rand region of Gauteng, a large suburban region east of Johannesburg. ''Ekurhuleni'' means "place of peace" in ...

. However, in 2013, the boundary was adjusted by the

Municipal Demarcation Board The Municipal Demarcation Board is an independent authority responsible for delimiting the boundaries of South African districts and municipalities and the boundaries of the electoral wards within those municipalities. General The Board was e ...

to move Eastgate fully into Ekurhuleni.

Notes

External links

Official site
{{Shopping centres in South Africa Buildings and structures completed in 1979 Buildings and structures in Germiston Shopping centres in Gauteng Shopping malls established in 1979 Economy of Ekurhuleni 20th-century architecture in South Africa