The Rise of theTshwane House
The Executive Mayor of Tshwane, Cllr Kgosientso Ramokgopa will lead a ceremonial Public-Private Partnership contract signing agreement for the construction of the City’s new headquarters; Tshwane House, with the executives of the consortium at the site on today.
Tshwane House, a modern, forward-looking municipal centre will bring local government closer to its people, and is the first step in rejuvenating the inner city.
The signing ceremony signals the official start of the much awaited construction with the first columns work for the building recently installed.
The City remains on track for its December 2016 move in target.
Transforming the Capital City:
The remaking of the capital city is also about intervening decisively in the creation of a modern urban fabric premised on the principles of achieving spatial justice, spatial sustainability, spatial resilience, spatial quality, and spatial efficiency. The core objective of the remaking of South Africa’s capital city is about how the City forges a new identity. To realize this objective, it requires mobilization of other spheres of government, residents, civil society, and the private sector in order to concretize the process that will lead to a shared development of South Africa’s capital city as envisioned in the Tshwane Vision 2055.
However, this spatial reconfiguration of Tshwane will have to be balanced against the competing needs of (1) becoming a capital city with global status with that of being (2) a national symbol that is (3) responsive to local developmental needs of our citizens as it continues to re-invent itself.
Therefore, the City’s infrastructure investment is premised around identified economic nodes to lead to the attainment of a better quality of life for all within the City of Tshwane. This will integrate a service-based divided City in a sustainable and environmentally sensitive manner. Thus, our nodal development approach supported by new urbanism principles is to anchor the City’s spatial transformation perspective and is key to how spatial transformation will eventually be experienced by the residents of Tshwane. In this regard, the new Tshwane House municipal headquarters complex project is both a new building project and a CBD regeneration project that will not only achieve massive cost effectiveness and productivity goals for the City’s service delivery management, but also generate economic redevelopment outcomes for the CBD in particular, for the whole city generally.
The core objective of the remaking of South Africa’s capital city is about how the City forges a new identity.”
A part of the Munitoria Building was destroyed by fire in March 1997. This block was never rebuilt. As a result the staff of the Munitoria was scattered in the inner city. The building contained inadequate space regimes, was not environmentally conducive and was not socially cohesive.
The Project is for the provision of serviced head office accommodation for a period of 25 years excluding construction period of 24 months to the staff of the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality. The scope of the project entails the demolition of the old “inferior” Munitoria buildings, a complete new design, construction, financing and other defined services including operations & facilities management for a period of twenty five years for the provision of serviced accommodation to 1589 Municipal staff of the inner city
The mechanism to deliver the project proposed the appointment of a suitably qualified Private Party who; through the use of a PPP agreement; who will contract with the City of Tshwane to provide serviced head office accommodation including, demolition, design, construction, refurbishment, relocation services, facilities management, financing and Life Cycle Capex management.
The Project is focused to meet the requirements of the strategic priorities of the City of Tshwane, namely:
- Economic growth and development
- Enhancing effective service delivery capacity, management and implementation of the CoT’s institutional obligations
- Management of the physical integration of Tshwane and improvement for the quality and sustainable viability of the urban and rural environment
- Accessibility, availability and affordability of essential services and facilities
- Achievement of a range of the CoT’s objectives, such as the promotion of job creation, SMME development, private sector participation and BBBEE
- Private sector investor investment in major capital projects within the CoT.
Tshwane House quick facts:
- Grade A office accommodation for 1589 council staff
- A Green Star 5 Building
- Total cost of the project over 25 years including the construction, operations, maintenance and life cycle replacements equates to a net present value of R2 billion
- Up to 1300 parking bays over 2 levels
- Cohesive working conditions conducive to interaction with the public
- A 250 (enabled for 350) seater standalone Council Chamber, with associated meeting rooms and communications booths.
Issued by the Public Affairs and Media Relations Division of the City of Tshwane.