The City of Cape Town has given the green light for the construction of a new mega-development housing Amazon Inc’s new Africa base in the heart of Cape Town’s emerging tech hub. Amazon will be the main tenant in the $280m (R4bn) River Club project that will also house residential units, office space, restaurants and a 200-room hotel. The municipality granted approval for the sprawling multiplex to be built across 15 hectares of land over three to five years. The retail giant is hiring aggressively in the region and building its Africa team and tap into the region’s fast-growing middle class of more than Africa’s 300 million, estimated to be the biggest in the world. It makes a great deal of sense for Amazon to bring its recognizable brand and highly differentiated Global Selling program to Africa.
The announcement sparked outcry from environmental and civil society groups, who say the project ransacks the local ecosystem and dishonours a sacred heritage site of the indigenous Khoi people, who settled on the land when they were driven from another area by Dutch settlers. The development will also block the valley, aggravating flooding, climate change and drought, environmentalists say. A local civil society group, The Observatory Civic Association (OCA), launched a fund-raising appeal on social media to take the project developers, the Liesbeek Leisure Properties Trust, to the high court, continuing five-year legal battle against the firm. The project will include an indigenous garden, cultural, heritage and media center for the Khoi people, a “heritage-eco trail” and garden amphitheater that members of the displaced community can use. Amazon will reportedly move its base from its modern eight-story office building in the city’s Roeland Street to the larger venue.