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Emira relaunches Springfield Retail Centre following 2021 riots

5 Aug 2022

Emira Property Fund has relaunched its Springfield Retail Centre in Durban, a year after the centre was damaged during the July 2021 riots. The rebuilding, restoring and refreshing of the 17,300m² lifestyle centre began immediately with the community coming out to help.

Source: Supplied

Most of the centre was reinstated and trading within a few weeks of the damage occurring, and Emira had the maximum amount of Sasria cover in place to adequately cover any damages and loss of trading. Fortunately, only one wing of the centre had structural damage, and around 30% of Block A was cordoned off without affecting trade in the rest of the centre.

As part of reinstating the centre, Emira took the opportunity to refresh and refine its tenant mix and reconfigure space to improve the overall shopping experience.

Source: Supplied

“We considered general shopping trends, monitored consumer patterns in Springfield Retail Centre’s catchment area and observed the centre’s tenant performance in order to identify improvements for its offering and match them with the type of retailers that would work best for the refreshed centre and its shoppers,” explains Ulana van Biljon, COO at Emira.

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Most of the restoration work has been completed and Springfield Retail Centre is already trading fully with only Westpack still to open at the end of August 2022.