The second URERU seminar of 2026, hosted by Quoin Technologies and The Urban Real Estate Research Unit, brought together a panel few rooms in South African property could assemble. The conversation traced the story of the V&A Waterfront, from harbour curiosity to one of the most successful mixed-use precincts in the world. It is more than a property asset. It is an economic engine, a cultural landmark, and a place that, as the evening made clear, tends to take hold of the people who work on it.
On the panel were David Green, former CEO of the V&A Waterfront Company, Norbert Sasse, Group CEO of Growthpoint Properties, and Wayne, former head of properties at the Public Investment Corporation (PIC). Their accounts moved from first memories of the harbour in the 1980s and 1990s to the decisions that shaped the precinct we know today.
A waterfront that lost its way
The story has a turning point, but it starts with a wrong turn. In 2006 the asset was sold into foreign ownership, to London and Regional and Dubai World, in a deal that was heavily leveraged just as the global financial crisis arrived. The new owners had vision, including talk of an African Riviera, but little alignment on how to get there. The panel was candid about what followed. Parking prices were pushed up, the precinct leaned hard into international tourism, and Cape Town slowly felt pushed out of its own waterfront. Investment all but stopped. By the time David Green joined as CEO, most of the management team had already left.
Growthpoint had looked closely in 2006 and walked away. The undeveloped bulk was difficult to value, and pricing it in would have dragged the yield down to low single digits. The numbers did not work at the time, but the interest never disappeared.
Bringing it home in 2011
The acquisition that changed everything came in 2011, when the PIC and Growthpoint bought the waterfront together. For the PIC, this was close to a private nationalisation. The Government Employees Pension Fund stands behind it, so the precinct was returned, in effect, to the nurses, teachers and police officers who are its members. National key points, the panel argued, should not sit in outside hands.
Growthpoint brought development and investment discipline. The two parties structured a 50/50 partnership built on unanimous consent for all key investment decisions, with day to day delegation to an investment committee. The deliberate aim was to keep the asset from ever becoming a political football, and to pair the PIC’s social conscience with private sector execution so that each curbed the excesses of the other.
Locals first, and the silo that unlocked everything
The vision was clear. Tourists will always come and go, but locals sustain an asset over the long term. That conviction showed up in the tenant mix, where space was made for everyday brands alongside the luxury names. It also showed up in the numbers. Around 30,000 people work in the precinct every day, it supports roughly 86,000 jobs, and it accounts for close to 2% of the entire Western Cape economy. During COVID, when income roughly halved, the waterfront was still Growthpoint’s best performing asset, proof of how much that local support matters.
Some of the boldest decisions carried little immediate return. The derelict grain silo, full of birds and falling concrete, was converted into the Zeitz MOCAA museum at almost no yield on its own. Yet it unlocked the entire Silo District, from Silo 3 through to the Virgin Active and the Radisson RED, and it drew anchor tenants like Allan Gray and PwC that turned the precinct into Cape Town’s prime office destination. The money came back many times over. As one panellist put it, you do not own the waterfront, the waterfront owns you.
The approach to development was just as deliberate. You build out a precinct fully rather than cherry picking, because the value is made in the last square metre. And you remember what you actually have, which is a neighbourhood of people rather than a collection of buildings. Holding firm to that, including keeping it a genuine working harbour rather than a theme park, is what gave Cape Town a New Year’s Eve to rank alongside London and Sydney.
The next decade
Looking ahead, recently approved rights at Granger Bay take the precinct past one million square metres of bulk, with 440,000 square metres signed off late last year. The next phase is residential led, with a meaningful portion of affordable housing, alongside life rights and aged care. The panel was frank that Cape Town’s real constraint is transport, and that rail will need to do the heavy lifting if the city is to keep growing. Sustainability is already well advanced, with the precinct running largely off-grid on water through desalination and waste to energy on the agenda.
The model, the panel agreed, is repeatable. Develop to hold, back it with long-term capital, and build social justice into the structure through public and private partnership. It needs deep pockets and an even longer vision, but it can be done.
The closing question lingered. Did the waterfront change Cape Town, or did Cape Town change the waterfront? The panel was generous to both. The waterfront is a neighbourhood, and like any neighbourhood, it grows with the city around it.
Thank you to our panel, to The Urban Real Estate Research Unit, and to everyone who joined us.
