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CIARAN RYAN: Residents and visitors to Port Elizabeth [Gqeberha], now called Nelson Mandela Bay, may remember with fondness the old oceanarium [Bayworld] and the Happy Valley nature park, both of which fell into neglect. Well, that’s about to change. The Mandela Bay Development Agency [MBDA] is behind an ambitious plan called the Bayworld Programme, named after the old oceanarium, to revitalise tourism and commerce in the area.
The plan provides for 13 projects, including a revamped oceanarium, an International Convention Centre [ICC] and a nature park and reserve. It’s situated on the tourism strip and is spread over 55 hectares of prime land within about two-and-a-half kilometres of a planned new aerotropolis, and we’ll find out what that is in a minute, as well as two-and-a-half kilometres from the inner city and an anticipated new waterfront.
Pretty exciting stuff. To find out more, we are joined by Luvoyo Bangazi, corporate services executive, Mandela Bay Development Agency. Hi,Luvoyo, tell us a little bit about the Bayworld Programme, what does it entail and how far along are you in the development?
LUVOYO BANGAZI: Thank you very much. So Bayworld – most South Africans will remember it as that iconic tourism landmark that used to host jumping dolphins and animal shows for entertainment in the late 1970s into the 1980s, receiving about 100 000 to 300 000 visitors a year.
Unfortunately, it fell into hard times, and it went into ruin, and we had to lose our dolphins to Hong Kong.
But fast forward to 2016, this facility, which is owned by the provincial government of the Eastern Cape, is on municipal land, which is Nelson Mandela Bay, and the two parties decided that enough is enough. It’s time to rework this, it’s time to revitalise this and to reboot the economy of the city.
So when the MBDA was tasked with this job, we actually took a step back to say, look, it’s actually part of a much wider precinct. It’s not just the oceanarium. When you look at the parcels of land that are surrounding Bayworld, which includes the Happy Valley nature park that you’ve mentioned, as well as Telkom Park, which is a site that used to host the old rugby stadium, we have now circled that precinct and called it Bayworld.
Just this week, we started demolishing dilapidated structures. We’ve done the feasibility work; we’ve done the economic modelling. We are moving ahead, and we believe this is a great opportunity for investors to have a look at.
CIARAN RYAN: Okay, so this is obviously going to cost money. Where’s that going to come from? Who’s going to pay?
LUVOYO BANGAZI: The good thing is we’ve done the hard yards. We’ve done the feasibility stuff. We’ve done the economic modelling and looked at the yields from this project and we know that there is value for PPPs, which is your public-private partnerships. Some of the projects are purely developmental in nature, which means a lot more government resources will go towards them.
But what we’re planning to do on Tuesday is to really unpack these and say to potential investors and [the] community out there, have a look at this and we need to understand from you how best we can package it so that it makes sense, and it makes economic sense for you to have a look at.
Register for the Bayworld Investor Roadshow taking place on Tuesday, 12 December at 8am.
So we are looking at a mix of government funds as well as PPPs.
CIARAN RYAN: Right, so the question is, how far along in the development are you? You mentioned that you started demolishing buildings. I presume that there are other facilities you’re going to have to do, set the groundwork. Are you advanced at all in terms of that?
LUVOYO BANGAZI: We’re advanced in the sense that we’ve done the costings. We have done the base work in terms of dealing with structures that we need to get rid of.
What we are not going to be doing at this point is to not interfere with the market.
We believe that those who look at this will look at the opportunity and will indicate to us what it is that they can take on, and what it is that government needs to do.
For example, we know that bulk services are a key issue, and we need to make sure that there is some provision, or at least there are offsets in terms of when we engage with whoever is keen to develop. The old stadium land parcel has intact services because it functioned with top structures. So there’s minimal work to be done there; at Bayworld, similar.
So we are not going to be investing heavy upfront and interfere with the market. I think we are listening because at this point, we need to understand how the market wishes to engage with this project.
We have done its cost. It’s going to take about R7 billion to completely do all these projects and we don’t expect that from a single investor or a single developer. We’ll probably look at different ways of packaging it.
CIARAN RYAN: Now, you mentioned there are 13 projects in the pipeline, and that’s according to the promotion that you put out. Tell us about a few of them. We talked about the oceanarium that’s being revitalised, and what is an aerotropolis?
LUVOYO BANGAZI: So the aerotropolis sits right outside the Bayworld precinct, and we’ve made reference to it because it’s a gateway to the city.
Our international airport, which needs a revamp, is a gateway to the city and the province.
So the aerotropolis is really an airport city, the likes of DBX in Dubai. An aerotropolis is typically where they have back-end logistics.
But that project is privately pursued, it’s not one of ours. We’re facilitating and supporting it. In terms of Bayworld though, and the Bayworld precinct, that’s where our effort is and that’s where the R7 billion that we’re referring to is identified to be looked at for.
CIARAN RYAN: Now, what impact do you expect this will have on the local economy?
LUVOYO BANGAZI: Huge, huge in two aspects. One, on job creation, but also in terms of the return on investment for those involved.
We know that it’s going to yield increased bed nights activity into the economy, the tourism economy. We also know that it’s going to inject much-needed indirect GDP growth into the economy of the city, which has struggled a bit.
But the three projects that are key for us in this is the oceanarium, which we know is a game changer.
We are looking at a new modern oceanarium that is not a circus, that is not an animal show, but more offering an immersive experience using the latest digital technologies.
We’ve seen these at play such as holograms and so on in other places.
The second one is the ICC. We believe that the city is ripe now for an ICC and to take advantage of the growth that we anticipate. If you think about the fact that we are the automotive hub of South Africa – every major manufacturer is in the Eastern Cape or nearby – there’s been constant demand for international motor shows, but also international conferences for the automotive sector and the downstream supplies.
And we’ve lost out on opportunities to other countries because of this.
So we believe that the ICC, the oceanarium are key, and third, maximising the natural beauty that is there with the Happy Valley nature park.
We believe that our partnership with entities such as the Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency [ECPTA] will unleash potential to bring in small wildlife and add to the mix that is available so that we bring this green lung all the way down to the coast.
So those three projects, amongst the 13, are top priority for us.
CIARAN RYAN: ICC means International Convention Centre, so you’re going to be emulating what Cape Town and, I guess, the Sandton Convention Centre in Joburg has done as well. The Garden Route has obviously become world famous and a high percentage of tourists who visit South Africa, they rate it amongst the most beautiful in the world. Do you expect this development to capture a bit more of this traffic that’s moving through the city and its surroundings?
LUVOYO BANGAZI: Oh, most definitely. So the numbers we’ve done in terms of tourism projections point to the fact that we may be able to increase visitor stays between one and two days just because of this project.
That’s very key for us because we don’t want to be a thoroughfare destination.
We want value to stay in Nelson Mandela Bay; that means the more creative activity that’s engaging and attractive to a diverse set of markets, whether they’re local or international.
In fact, we’re quite focused on the domestic market because we know we are a very cheap destination for the rand value that it is. It’s easy for anyone to come to Nelson Mandela Bay from anywhere in South Africa.
It’s even more of an advantage with internationals. but our first priority is the domestic market, and we know that if we can increase from one day to two more days that’s almost a 100% increase in stay, and that’s a huge benefit for the city.
CIARAN RYAN: Very exciting stuff. Luvoyo Bangazi, corporate services executive, Mandela Bay Development Agency, thanks for joining us.
LUVOYO BANGAZI: Thank you very much.
Register for the Bayworld Investor Roadshow taking place on Tuesday, 12 December at 8am.
Brought to you by Mandela Bay Development Agency [MBDA].
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