May 9, 2007
By Lucille Davie
THINK of a small corner of the CBD where R7-billion changes hands every year and you'd be forgiven for thinking of the mining district in Main Street or the banking sector scattered across the city. Instead, think Jewel City.
A precinct of four city blocks on the eastern edge of the city centre, Jewel City is quietly getting on with the business of boosting economic activity in the CBD, as well as bringing tourists to spend welcome foreign currency in Johannesburg.
The entrance to Jewel City in Main Street
In existence for the past 17 years, Jewel City was on the brink of moving to Melrose Arch a year or so ago before the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) stepped in to revamp the area. The first phase was to clean up the district; now the JDA is spending R14-million to give it an identity of its own. This started in January and will be finished in July.
It involves street upgrades; artwork; new lighting; street furniture like benches, paving and kerbing; much-needed trees; as well as developing gateways at its entrances.
Jewel City consists of offices and workshops for about 300 diamond dealers and manufacturers, who receive and process diamonds from as far away as Angola, the Congo and Botswana.
The four blocks, consisting of a number of buildings, are at present divided down the middle by a high wall and owned by two parties: Apex Hi and a private stakeholder, who wishes to remain anonymous. The wall is to come down by the end of May.
David Rice, MD of Apex Hi, expects to expand Jewel City in the future. "We have bought properties on Phillip Street, and will clean up the area, and expand to create more parking."
It is surrounded by very tall metal gates and high security electric wiring, and floor-to-floor security clearance. It is bordered by Commissioner and Main streets in the north and south, and Berea and Phillip streets in the east and west, neatly positioned between the outgoing and incoming M2.
Three blocks of Fox Street and two blocks each of Phillips and Greene streets are incorporated within the precinct. The immediate area consists of untidy streets housing mostly motor industry workshops and borders the fashion district, an intensive small-scale clothing industry area.
An aerial view of the precinct, sandwiched between the M2 in- and outgoing lanes
The Diamond Board and Bourse, a training school, several bank branches, the Diamond Merchants' Association, the Rough Diamond Master Cutters' Association and the Jewellery Council are all housed in Jewel City.
The precinct attracts about 1 000 visitors a day, mostly buying cut and polished but unmounted diamonds.
Revamp
The JDA called in Gapp Architects and Urban Designers for the revamp. Architect Mbongeni Ngulube says the company has tried to accommodate pedestrians and traffic in the re-design. "We have taken a deconstructed diamond shape at the intersection of Market and Commissioner streets and created a gateway from the airport."
It will contain two indigenous trees and a sculpture with attractive paving enhancing the intersection. Another sculpture, three blocks away on the corner of Commissioner and End streets, will be erected, creating a pedestrian intersection. The intersections will be delineated with bollards.
A point of interest on this corner is an old granite beacon, now lying on its side, marking one of the bottom points of the original triangle of land from which Joburg grew, referred to as Randjeslaagte. The brass plaque on the beacon is missing but the beacon will be lifted and a new plaque will be put in place as part of the revamp.
Once approval has been obtained from City Power, says Ngulube, part of the plan is to erect rings of metal with embedded lights around sections of the freeway on either side of the precinct. The rings won't go completely over the freeway.
Already the freeway pillars have been cleaned of old graffiti and posters and treated with anti-graffiti paint. It is estimated that the private sector, largely in the form of Apex Hi, has pumped about R135-million into the district.
Other developments
Meanwhile, the set of four buildings directly opposite the precinct, on Berea Street, has been bought by developer Ricci Polack. He was responsible for one of the first conversions of factory space to loft apartments on the western edge of the CBD, in Milpark, calling it The Refinery.
Polack is planning a mixed-use development, with 17 lofts, offices, a piazza, a restaurant and an art collection. The original building belonged to DF Corlett, a building contractor and former mayor of Joburg who gave his name to Corlett Drive in Illovo. His original chair, desk and safe were part of the purchase.
Some redevelopment has already taken place. In 2006, the five-storey August House in End Street, previously a small-scale factory building, was converted into loft and studio space, with an international art gallery opening on its ground floor.
And in 2003, an old factory building at the far southern end of End Street was also converted into loft living space.
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