Chief Executive Officer of CONVENCO (holding company of CTICC) Ian Douglas says, "The new 15 storey building will be erected on what is presently called the 'Heerengracht site'- vacant land that is currently used as an informal parking lot.
"The new building, to be developed by Spearhead Property Group, will provide much needed additional space to Africa's most successful conferencing and exhibitions centre. It held 367 events in the last year alone. The expansion will enable us to accommodate the needs of large and ever-growing events like the Cape Town Jazz Festival, and exhibitions like the Homemakers Fair and Decorex, as well being able to offer more event capacity overall for the increasing number of large international conventions."
The office tower with about 12 000 m² of space will form a bookend to the current CTICC campus, creating a balance with the Arabella Sheraton hotel at one end. The new building will also have retail space, three parking levels and basement parking.
The development will be financed in part by Spearhead who will acquire a 50 year lease over the land.
Construction on the R125m building will start by the end of 2005 to be completed by December 2006.
The first event to be hosted by the expanded Exhibitions Hall will be the International Diabetes Conference - one of CTICC's first city-wide mega conferences - with 10 000 people expected to attend.
