The Cape Town Central City Improvement District is set to release the latest edition of The State of Cape Town Central City Report: 2017 – A year in review in just under a month’s time.
The sixth annual investment report to date published by the organisation, the 2017 review will speak not only to the economic climate of the Central City over the past year, but will also for the first time offer numerous insights into the way forward for those looking to invest in the CBD, as well as those looking to diversify their business offerings.
Says Carola Koblitz, Communications manager for the CCID and editor of the report: “We’ve heard a great deal over the past year about the need for downtowns to become resilient. We’ve even experienced it most recently ourselves with the water crisis.
“As the oldest city improvement district in Cape Town, we have accumulated a vast amount of data, and the latest report will be using this not only to look back at 2017 but to analyse the most productive ways of moving forward in terms of resilience as well as upcoming trends and adaptations of the various market sectors that do business and invest in the CBD.
To this end, the next report will include information on upcoming trends in retail as well as the residential market.
“As the CCID Communications department, we’ve done a great deal of research over the past year particularly in terms of the future of retail, and we’ve also discovered that so much of it dovetails with the future of other sectors such as the residential market. What we’ve also been heartened to realise is that traditional walk-in retail is far from dead, even with the growing advent of cyber shopping. It just needs to adapt to the times and provide shoppers with the experiences they are looking for.”
The strength of the Central City as a conferencing and eventing destination is also delved into in depth in the upcoming report, with the report’s research team having done extensive work on investigating the full number of establishments in the CBD that have facilities for hire.
“From the Cape Town International Convention Centre – which is of course the jewel in the crown, particularly with the recent opening of the new extension – to much smaller venues able to host a board meeting for 12, we’ve established that the Central City is able to host over 61 000 people just in terms of conferences and events.”
The 2017 report will also once again cover occupancy rates in the Central City in terms of both retail and commercial property, as well as the usual insights into the sectional title residential market over the past year.
The launch of the 2017 report is expected to receive wide coverage once again in the media. It will be made available both in hardcopy as well as online on the CCID’s own website publications page (www.capetownccid.org).
Image by Scott Arendse