Several thousand shoppers flocked to the newly opened Baywest Mall on the outskirts of Port Elizabeth on Thursday.
The 1.7 billion rand mall is a joint venture between Abacus Asset Management and Billion Group.
The aim is to extend the development to what they say would be a city within a city, with the future introduction of residential, retail, business and light industry nodes on a 320 hectare site.
Baywest Mall General Manager, Sonja de Necker, says more than 20 000 people visited the mall during the day, and by late yesterday, shops and eateries were still busy trading.
She says, however, the day was not without incident...
"We had 3 shoplifters who were successfully apprehended. The police, especially Kabega Park police station, they helped us with all those cases. We also had a report of a misplaced car, we were very fortunate to help the gentlemen after he reported it as stolen. This will happen less and less as people know at which entrance to park"
Meanwhile The Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber has congratulated Baywest Mall on its successful opening.
CEO, Kevin Hustler, says in particular, they welcome the massive investment in Nelson Mandela Bay and look forward to the further development of the Baywest City Precinct.
He says organised business is looking forward to the potential economic knock-on effect that the new interchange with the N-2 and other road infrastructure will have in unlocking the Western suburbs and further developing that part of the city...
We welcome this massive investment into Nelson Mandela Bay and look forward to the further development of the Baywest City Precinct.
To the developers, Billion Group and Abacus Asset Management, congratulations on achieving your vision and making the dream of Baywest Mall a reality.
The shopping centre's world-class cutting edge architecture is complemented by national and international brands, whom we welcome to our shores.
It is wonderful to also welcome back an ice-rink to the city of Nelson Mandela Bay and we hope that both the retailers and the community of Nelson Mandela Bay will enjoy the unique shopping experience Baywest Mall has to offer.
In particular, we welcome the thousands of construction jobs the mall has created as well as the new retail jobs.
