Victoria and Alfred Waterfront - Capetown

Looking around the world for waterfronts a bit like Auckland, I came across the Victoria and Alfred waterfront in Capetown, South Africa. Others who have been there have told me about it before, but I'm seeing it though new eyes right now. The redevelopment shares quite a few characteristics with Auckland - not least being the similar age and similar buildings.

Anyway. Here's a bit of the history, and a few photos of what they've done....

"...Calls for greater public access and a wider use of Cape Town's historic harbour started in the early 1970's. In 1988, the then landowner (State-owned transport corporation, Transnet Limited) established a wholly owned subsidiary company, Victoria & Alfred Waterfront (Pty) Limited, to redevelop the historic docklands....

...This was received with large-scale public acclaim.... Since its origins in 1860, the Port of Cape Town has been the scene of excavations, reclamations, harbour construction programmes and land based developments....

By the time Prince Alfred* tipped the first load of stone into the sea to initiate construction of Cape Town's harbour, the trade routes to the East had transformed the city into a hive of seafront activity. The discovery of gold and diamonds in South Africa meant that the first section of harbour, the Alfred Basin, had to be added to and the Victoria Basin was built.

The area is notable for its outstanding heritage buildings. It retains the charm of Victorian industrial architecture and the scale of a harbour built for sail and the early days of steam travel.

In the 1970s, containerisation had developed worldwide as the major method of cargo handling and transportation. It was this, together with South Africa's economic isolation at the time and the reopening of the Suez Canal, that led to a sharp reduction in the utilisation of land and harbour facilities surrounding the Victoria & Alfred Basins. At the time, Transnet was in the process of rationalising harbour facilities and reviewing its harbour and other land holdings with particular emphasis on the returns being generated by these assets.

The Victoria & Alfred Waterfront project is the culmination of nearly three decades of planning and development proposals....."