Major restyling for Cape Town centre

CBD being revamped over next decade

Cape Town's Central Business District (CBD) is set for a major upgrade over the next decade, with many projects nearing completion and others in the pipeline.

The Cape Town Central City Improvement District (CCID) group predicts substantial changes for the area in the coming years, particularly in 2020 when the expanded Artscape Theatre Complex is set for completion. The 17,000-sqm site will become one of the continent's largest cultural precincts dedicated to the performing arts.

Elsewhere in the CBD, the Cape Town International Convention Centre is being expanded, and the new Christiaan Barnard Memorial Hospital is under construction.

Upgrading work on the Standard Bank building The Towers is under way and there are plans to revamp the Media24 building, whose 24 floors made it Africa's tallest skyscraper for a time when it was built in 1962.

Also nearing completion in the CBD is Cape Town's tallest building, the 142-storey Portside Tower which is jointly owned by banks Old Mutual and Rand Merchant Bank.

Statistics from CCID show that 350,000 people pass through the CBD every day although there are only 5,000 permanent residents in the district.