Construction World February 2016

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CONSTRUCTION WORLD FEBRUARY 2016
PROJECTS AND CONTRACTS
At 410 metres long, the new pedestrian walkway and bridge
over the busy Malibongwe Drive, is strategically located at the
entrance to bustling Cosmo City. It will not only give Cosmo
City residents and visitors safe and easy pedestrian access to
the trendy new 22 000 m2 Cosmo Mall, but represents a major private
sector investment in public infrastructure by Bentel Group.
“The Cosmo Mall Pedestrian Bridge is scheduled to open to the
public in the latter half of December. We are proud to have made this
further investment in Cosmo City, which is not just a public facility,
but has been strikingly designed and will be user-friendly,” says Bentel
Group executive chairman, Aubrey Bentel.
“Its design was aimed at creating a landmark structure in the
community that gets used and also inspires civic pride.
This multi-million rand investment comes just more than a year
since we opened the R270-million Cosmo Mall in September 2014. The
mall has more than 70 retail stores, eateries and service outlets and has
brought quality shopping to the Cosmo City community,” adds Bentel.
The Cosmo Mall Pedestrian Bridge and walkway will serve the main
pedestrian entrance into the new mall and Bentel forecasts it will result
in more than 400 000 shoppers visiting the mall in December alone.
Currently, the mall sees an average monthly footfall of around 340 000.
Shoppers who utilise vehicles are catered for with ample parking as well
as a taxi drop-off facility.
Bentel comments: “In designing and constructing the bridge, we
used a highly skilled professional team comprising WSP Consulting
Civil & Structural Engineers, Rob Bray Architects, Quad Africa Electrical
Engineers and contractors Tri-Star and Ferro Eleganza. An integral part
of our brief to the professional team was to create a very user friendly
bridge structure, with a gradual incline to make it suitable for wheel-
chairs access.”
He adds: “We managed to achieve this, partially due to the topo-
graphical composition of the land in the area, in addition to making
use of an extended arc design. This resulted in the gradual elevation of
Set to become a
LANDMARK
The new multi-million rand landmark
Cosmo Mall Pedestrian Bridge, developed
by the owners and developers of the mall,
Bentel Group, opened in December, just
ahead of peak festive season trading.
>
An artist’s initial impression of the bridge.
The Cosmo Pedestrian Bridge during construction.
the structural incline. The bridge,
which is illuminated at night,
was designed to have a positive
impact on the landscape and is
set to become a treasured land-
mark in Cosmo City.”
Bentel Group decided to build
the bridge not only for improved
pedestrian access into Cosmo
Mall, but also to create a strong
visual presence for the mall with a
public structure that would serve
as a beacon.
“As you come from Lanseria
Airport, heading towards Malibo-
ngwe Drive, you will be able to see
the bridge. The bridge extends
Cosmo Mall into the public space,
which is in effect an extension of
the mall. It leads customers from
the traffic lights on the Western
side of Malibongwe Drive virtually
to the entrance door of Cosmo
Mall,” explains Bentel.
Cosmo Mall, which has been
open for just 14 months, has seen
an increase of 32% in footfall for
October 2015 at the mall entrance
where the bridge terminates.
This statistic bodes well for
the success of the bridge project
and ultimately the mall,”
says Bentel.