Riverside Park celebrates its 21st
Riverside Park marked its 21st year with an elegant celebration in the botanical garden recently.
MBOMBELA – It all started in 1995 when Mbombela was presented with the prospect of achieving capital-city status.
At the same time, the decision by HL Halls & Sons to donate land to house the Provincial Legislature in Riverside Park proved to be the launching pad for the planning and development of this centre.
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Old Mutual, developers of Riverside Mall, and Tsogo Sun soon followed and before very long, additional investors and tenants showed a keen interest in making this mixed-use node their home.
During the course of its development, it became clear that the node needed an urban management structure in place to manage the precinct in conjunction with the city.
In 2004 the Riverside Park City Improvement District (CID) was established in accordance with the former Nelspruit bylaws.
It has become one of the leading CIDs in the country, according to Anne Steffny, independent urban management specialist and board member of Riverside Park CID.
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Now, 21 years later, the development continues to grow at an amazing pace. Each new phase is carefully planned, from land acquisition and tenant placement, to architecture and design, from landscaping and aesthetics, to construction and maintenance.
In honour of 21 years of successful development and operation, Riverside Park invited prominent property owners, tenants and the City of Mbombela (CoM) partners to a coming-of-age birthday dinner in the botanical garden last week.
“What started out as a vision and became a plan and reality in conjunction with our new democracy, has today become a thriving node that has attracted over R8 billion worth of new investment in the region and changed the face of the city,” said James Aling, chairman of Riverside Park CID and managing director of Halls Properties.
“The collaborative partnership between the city, the developers and the CID has resulted in significant economic benefits to the region and city and contributed to the Riverside Park node becoming a development that the city, and all owners in the CID, can surely be very proud of,” Aling concluded.
