Durban's Inner City Gets a New Look Sunday Tribune Property Section February 10 - 16 2007

Chris Horn and Stephanie Miller on top of the old Himalaya Hotel in downtown Durban

Greg Ardé Property Editor

Smart property investors are buying up old buildings in downtown Durban and transforming them into apartment blocks for inner city dwellers.The latest example of this is the old Himalaya Hotel, a six storey block in Dr Yusef Dadoo Street, formerly Grey Street.
This month multimillion Rand renovations will start on the building to produce 104 bachelor, one and two bedroom flats.

The development is being done by Urbanize, a company owned by Owen Kemp who built the upmarket Plantations gated estate in Hillcrest.
This is the third inner city development facilitated by Urbanize, shareholder Chris Horn said.
The company transformed the old Teesav factory in Baker Street next to the High Court into 149 residential apartments.

That R31 million refurbishment yielded gross sales of R45 million and the average selling price per apartment was R330 000. Apartments came with fitted kitchen, including four plate hob, under counter oven and extractor fan. All living areas were tiled and the bedrooms were carpeted. Communal facilities like a laundromat were fitted in the basement.
Horn said 30m2 bachelor flats in the complex sold for R220 000. All but two of the flats sold to investors, Horn said. Urbanize also renovated the 10 storey Acutt House in Acutt Street, adjacent to the Playhouse which was moth-balled for several years and then renovated and sold to TAFTA (The Association for the Aged).

Last year MaxProp facilitated a deal in Smith Street where London House was bought and renovated. One bedroom and bachelor flats will be on sale there soon.
And, in Field Street above the massive Mr Price store, Apartmentbox is marketing 108 new apartments priced from R320 000.

The developers are advertising a range of benefits, including rental management for investors, 24 hour security and “back up electrical generators”.
In the Himalaya buyers can expect similar finishes to those in Baker Street, plus biometric (fingerprint) access and pre-paid electricity meters in each flat.
Investors can secure a flat for R10 000 and will be able to write off 30% of the purchase price over five years against tax because the units fall in the SARS defined Urban Development Zone. The eThekwini council recently announced that the UDZ in Durban had unlocked over R1 billion in inner city regeneration.

The UDZ was introduced in 2003 and allows property owners to write off refurbishment and new building costs against income in promulgated UDZ areas. According to the city the aim of the UDZ tax incentive is to revitalize urban areas and business districts, thereby stimulating economic development.  The incentive does this through encouraging capital investment in buildings in demarcated urban areas.

The UDZ in Durban is bounded by Bell Street in the south through to Shepstone Road, Victoria Embankment, Alexandra Street, Berea Road, Carters Avenue, Canongate Road, Warwick Avenue, Centenary Road, Carlisle Road, First Avenue, Stamford Hill Road, Croydon Road, Walter Gilbert Road, Cobham Road, Old Fort Road, NMR Avenue, Somtseu Avenue, Stanger Street, Argyle Road, NMR Avenue and Walter Gilbert Road in the north. 
For technical details on the UDZ and its allowances, contact Don Colbourne on 031 311 7186; Fikile Ndlovu on 031 336 2586, or Michelle Moodley from the South African Revenue Services on 031 333 7926.

Industrial Site to be Flats

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