Two of the largest shopping malls in South Africa, Fourways Mall and Brooklyn Mall, have suffered significant declines in vacancy rates.

Brooklyn Mall is 75% owned by Growthpoint Properties, the largest South African real estate investment trust (REIT) listed on the JSE.

Growthpoint’s results were disappointing. The REIT saw its net asset value per share decline by 6.1% to 2,020 cents per share.

One of its worst performers was Brooklyn Mall, whose vacancy rate shot up from 3.6% in 2019 to 18.7% in 2024.

Brooklyn Mall used to be a fantastic asset, which Growthpoint describes as the “premier shopping destination in Pretoria”.

It is perfectly positioned close to affluent suburbs with upmarket residential homes, corporate offices, and many embassies and diplomatic properties.

The shopping mall has excellent restaurants, high-end clothing shops, national retailers, and quality home and décor shops.

Brooklyn Mall is one of South Africa’s largest shopping centres. It spans 75,259 square meters with a 5.2 million average annual footfall and 220 stores.

On paper, Brooklyn Mall should be printing money. However, it lost its lustre recently and is now struggling to fill its stores.

There are many reasons for this. One of them is that many homeless people started to beg inside the mall, which drove away its affluent clientele.

The mall was slow to address the growing number of vagrants around and inside the shopping centre, which gave it a poor image.

Alongside its vagrant problem, crime at Brooklyn Mall started to make headlines. This chased away many shops and shoppers.

To add fuel to the fire, a few competing malls, notably the Castle Gate Shopping Centre, provided an attractive alternative to Brooklyn Mall.

The result was that Brooklyn Mall’s gross rental income per square meter and vacancy rates declined, reaching alarming levels in 2024.

The charts below shows Brooklyn Mall’s decline over the last five years.

Fourways Mall decline

South Africa’s largest shopping centre, Fourways Mall, faces challenges similar to those faced by Brooklyn Mall, with declining rental income and increased vacancy rates.

Fourways Mall, which is 50% owned by Accelerate Property Fund, was revamped and expanded in 2019.

This project increased the shopping centre’s gross lettable area (GLA) from 61,634 square meters to 88,785 square meters.

The owners were upbeat about its prospects because of its excellent location and a great track record.

However, it did not produce the expected results. The number of vacant shops became a headache for the owners, and the mall lost its lustre.

Fourways Mall’s vacancy rate increased from 3% in 2021 to 20% three years later, which is disastrous for any property owner.

The net rent per square meter declined from R278 in 2019 to R223 in 2024, and rental income declined from R330 million to R295 million over the last year.

The mall’s fair value also took a significant hit. It declined from R9.6 billion in 2020 to R7.8 billion in 2024, a loss of R1.8 billion.

Fourways Mall faced financial hardship, which saw all stakeholders launch a turnaround plan to revive the shopping centre.

It partnered with Flanagan & Gerard as the strategic asset managers and Moolman Group as the property managers.

The plan is to improve signage, introduce new tenants, deploy backup power solutions, improve security, optimise traffic flow, enlarge parking bays, and revitalise the surrounding area.

The charts below show Fourways Mall’s financial decline over the last few years.

Source: Businesstech