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Neighbourhood Watch Meet them at the Carlton - Carlton Centre

Doug Hoffe, ex-managing director of Anglo American Properties (AmProp) says emphatically: 'The Carlton Centre was unique in property development at the time, both in the country and the world. And it still is, it can still compete with New York's Rockerfeller Center today!' Everyone associated with the Carlton Centre, past or present, speaks about it with the same passion.

The idea for the Carlton Centre, comprising the 50-storey office tower with its subterranean retailing and parking areas, and 32-storey hotel, was presented by Hoffe and Ted Sceales, then managing director of South African Breweries, to Anglo American Chairman Harry Oppenheimer, in 1962.

'The scale was something never attempted before,' says Hoffe. 'We needed to close off four streets, buy up and demolish all the buildings, but we had to buy out all the leases too. Some of those little shops had leases for 10 years.'

(Left: Dorcas Mosebi; Graham Ewing; Yolande Baron; David Appleton; and Rajan Desraj, PropNet's acting CEO).

Hoffe had the unenviable task of reporting to the executive committee of Anglo American that they were now the proud owners of a milk bar or antique shop. 'The Chairman used to say: "Doug, we're always interested in diversifying, but quite frankly a hairdresser's is a little beneath us." I had to tell them they had no choice'.

One building, Denston Court, was more simply organised. 'There were no tenants or leases,' remembers Hoffe. 'Just ladies of questionable virtue. It was an easy buy.'

Bound on four sides by Main, Von Wielligh, Commissioner and Kruis Street, the excavation for the 'superblock' was the world's largest for a city centre building project at the time and meant digging a hole the equivalent of 10 storeys deep. The amount of earth extracted equalled the volume of the Empire State Building.

The term 'anorak' wasn't yet in common usage; instead, there were members of the 'Hole-Watchers Club', people who spent their weekends loyally watching the hole grow. Helpful site engineers cut eye-level holes in the surrounding hoardings for the regulars.

Today the Carlton Centre is such a familiar part of Johannesburg's skyline that many forget, or have never realised, just how extraordinary its construction is. Its design technology stands among the best ever built even by today's standards and it still makes the top 10 of the world's highest reinforced-concrete structures.

North America was at the forefront of skyscraper design in the ?s and the Carlton Centre was designed by renowned American architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, who were also responsible for the Sears Tower in Chicago.

(Left: The 'topping out' of the Carlton office tower on 31 August 1972 by Harry Oppenheimer; Douglas Hoffe is behind him).

The building is designed to expand more on the sunny sides than the cooler sides. Its central core servitude or 'slide' of 235m is slab cast with bearings and advanced buttressing, which allow each floor to rise and settle, every day throughout the day, as climatic changes dictate. There is also an in-built compensatory tilt factor so that when one side of the building heats up and expands, workers don't list drunkenly towards the bottom corner of their office.

'The Carlton Centre is an extraordinary legacy for South Africa, and was built to be precisely that. The expertise necessary to build it and the expense in running it, I don't think, has ever truly been appreciated. Doctors of plumbing had to come out from the States to help with the loos!' says Graham Ewing, the centre's leasing manager from opening until 1977.

A special type of vacuum toilet flush system had to be created – getting water to and waste from a 50^th floor had never been done before. The air-conditioning sucked in air, filtered it, dried it, rehydrated it, chilled it and pumped back in air of a quality 'good enough for a modern day surgical operating theatre.'

There were inevitably some problems when the tower opened in 1972 with its approximately 50 000m² of office and 70 000m² of retail space. Says Ewing: 'For the specified return on investment needed, we were asking R12/m². Sometimes we had to bring it down to R3. The market dictates what people will pay, especially a market that doesn't understand the infrastructure involved.' The office tower was the first to have a dedicated leasing department with leasing lawyers, a librarian, assistants and a leasing manager. The Carlton Centre was also the first to be marketed on image and lifestyle.

'We actually had to learn the difference between sales and marketing,' remembers Ewing. And as their marketing skills improved, so did the rentals. Ewing also remembers the 'dismal failure' of the SA Exhibition Centre that had been created above the parking. It was turned into the famous Skyrink ice-rink. Although long gone, the Skyrink sign is still there.

To open the rink, they brought out the All England Amateur Skating Champion. Ewing shakes his head as he remembers: 'She was a sweet girl, but I'll never forget the sound of her hitting that ice. She fell almost as soon as she got on it!'

But there were more good times than bad. Everyone, then and now, who works in, with or for the Carlton Centre talks of a sense of feeling special. Not being a family – that's too twee – but a shared understanding of being part of something bigger, better, taller and more interesting than most. The old guard talk of the permanent queues for Die Koffiehuis coffee shop; of needing to book two weeks in advance for a table at The Three Ships; and of the need to party.

The centre had an annex called the Flag Hotel which had become yet another place of easy virtue. When the hotel came down a street party was in order. 'We considered the working girls tenants by then and we knew they'd pitch up anyway, so we put them on the official guest list,' says Ewing putting his face in his hands as he recalls 'one of the greatest parties' he's ever been to.

But as the Carlton rose to its vibrant heyday, Johannesburg was falling as the decentralising stampede to the north began. A couple of bombs by anti-apartheid activists helped seal the Carlton's fate.

Says Ewing: 'Instead of being a launchpad for a new era, it coincided with the death of the old. But the Carlton Centre has to have an extended life beyond its socio-political one.' And it will have.

Mothballed once the flight from the city was all but complete, the Carlton Centre remained standing.

PropNet, a business unit of TransNet, purchased the Carlton Centre in 1999. They paid R32-million for it, less than the original budget for its construction over 35 years ago. The final mortgage raised was R44m. Doug Hoffe reckons final building costs were in the region of R50m.

Buying the centre, and moving into town, was a considered decision by TransNet. Johannesburg Mayor Amos Masondo wanted a parastatal in the city; TransNet wanted to be part of its regeneration. Yolande Baron, the Carlton Centre's general manager, explains that it made sense to consolidate TransNet and all its business units under one, very famous, roof.

Dorcas Mosebi, the Carlton Centre's marketing manager, was originally with AmProp and joined the Carlton in 1998, prior to its sale. It took until 2002 for TransNet to be up and running after which PropNet gave themselves five years to turn the centre around. It took them just two and a half.

'When we moved just 30 per cent of the retail and office space was filled,' Mosebi says, and continues with justifiable pride. 'By next month the retail component will be full and office occupancy is around 95 per cent.'

The secret to their success was security. Says Mosebi: 'People thought downtown was nothing but crime and grime. We had to sell the idea of the centre being safe. And it is.'

Adds Baron: 'A lot of high level political and business figures move through here. It's essential we make the centre secure internally as well as ensuring a safe corridor to and from the centre. Obviously, this makes it safe for tenants and visitors too.'

The centre has all its original services, and considering their age, they are still more efficient than most. The lifts still literally take your breath away as they silently sprint skywards. And there are the views. Sitting in Baron's 35^th floor office you can't blame her – or any tenant – for exuding a subtle sense of smugness about working at the Carlton.

'This is a centre of difference,' she confirms. 'The social environment is different, the physical structure is different, the history is different. Everyone who comes here to shop or eat, or who works here, feels that it's unique.'

In terms of marketing, I mention all the 'standard' fashion shows and promotions around the usual Hallmark holidays that retail centres always have. Mosebi stares at me with raised eyebrows: 'We'll always do things differently at the Carlton!'

The centre – with its payoff line 'The Centre of Africa' – is buzzing with people. All the major banks are in the centre (Nedbank is moving in as we speak); Foschini and Nando's are moving in soon. SARS moved in two years ago. Pick 'n Pay has been there for 12.

(Left: David Appleton in the magnificent Carlton Hotel ballroom, staring at the ghosts).

On the 50^th floor, now known as the Top of Africa, and which PropNet plans to start revamping, handfuls of tourists are staring out at what is still the most astonishing panorama in Gauteng. And Marung, Nancy Nxumalo's restaurant, is quiet after the lunchtime crowd. Marung means 'next to the clouds'. 'I always wanted to work somewhere special,' Nxumalo enthuses with that forgivable Carlton hauteur. 'And now I'm up in the sky! It's a wonderful place to be.'

She has seen a 'drastic change' in the six years she's been there and now that perceptions about the city's safety are changing, the restaurant will be expanding in anticipation of the soccer in 2010 and hosting conferences and concerts on the 50^th floor. They still hold weddings up there, offering the antithesis of pseudo-Tuscan or copycat-Cotswold wedding venues in the north.

 Despite the unfortunate political timing of its creation, after a necessary hiatus the Carlton has become the dynamic melting pot it was always intended to be. 'It's an extraordinary building and an extraordinarily valuable one,' says Hoffe. 'I would like people today to think that the Carlton Centre can once again be like it was at its prime.'

For the people working there, eating and meeting there, and those just there for the view, it already is.

THE CARLTON HOTEL

The Carlton Hotel was the last component of the Carlton Centre and opened in October 1972. It was the biggest hotel in the southern hemisphere at the time with 603 rooms (excluding the Carlton Court).

David Appleton, who had been asked to set up the original outdoor ice rink at the Rondehof section of the centre, was asked by the American general manager of the hotel to be its marketing director. Not being able to skate, he accepted and stayed in the role (among others) from the hotel's opening until 1976. The hotel opened charging R14 per person per night; its closest rival charged a trifling R9. Appleton remembers: 'They were still laying carpets at the back as the guests came in the front!'

Managed by Western International, the American management team trained local staff to international standards and it was to become the epicentre of the country's well-heeled high life with its slogan: 'Meet Me At The Carlton'.

There are the usual 'firsts': it was the first hotel in the country to have every room en suite; the first to have all double rooms; the first to have a pool on the roof; the first to have a 'flying kitchen'.

'A flying kitchen is basically a lift that's fitted out to be able to boil eggs and stuff,' explains Appleton. A kind of human-scaled, mobile hot-tray. But in the way of most moveable feasts, it was usually on the wrong floor at the wrong time and was 'a bit of a failure'.

'Before we opened we used guinea pig people,' explains Appleton. Focus groups in today's marketing nomenclature. 'We offered free weekends with the whole works. We had everything planned down to the finest detail with breakfast cards on every door. The only thing we didn't have were the room numbers on them.'

At 6.30 a.m. 250 guinea pigs were woken with queries about scrambled or fried.

Today, the hotel stands empty. Ewing estimates the cost of building it now would run close to R1.2-billion. For probably a tenth of that cost, he and Appleton believe it could be taken over operationally and revived. 'It would be disgraceful to let it die,' says Ewing. 'It could and should be a cosmopolitan African hotel of international standing. It has the facilities to more than make that possible.'

Selling the hotel would be impossible due to its shared infrastructure and services with the centre. But things are quietly happening there. Although PropNet do not actively market the hotel they are occasionally approached to use it for special projects. In February the Absa Cup was launched there; VW launched the new GTi in the ballroom in April.

Appleton, for whom the hotel is 'full of ghosts', remembers when the hotel offered 'in-town getaways' – when bored suburbanites would head to the city centre for a weekend package that included theatre tickets, dinner, bed and breakfast with free parking.

'The hotel will be dependent on the corporate market,' says Appleton. 'A lot of big business is in town again, yet they're going to the north for conference and hotel facilities.' But it is his, and many others, fervent hope that people will meet at the Carlton once again.