The rapid growth of Durban North’s industrial suburbs and property values

Over the last 10 years the industrial nodes along Durban’s north axis have emerged as the city’s premium industrial areas. North Durban ticks all the boxes for companies looking for warehousing facilities, distribution centres and container yards. The area has natural advantages – good connectivity as the recently upgraded R102, and the N2 flow through it coupled with a huge labour base in nearby areas of KwaMashu and Phoenix. In addition, the north industrial suburbs lie within 25km radius of both the new King Shaka International Airport and the port and container terminals at Bayhead.

The two suburbs that have seen the greatest growth during this period are Briadene and the relatively new Riverhorse Valley, with the latter being Durban’s most sought after industrial suburb, commanding benchmark rentals and selling prices. 2 new major KZN headquarter building developments in Riverhorse Valley, include Unilever and Waltons (Bidvest) distribution centres, and the R183 000 000 (buildings) plus R115 000 000 (land) development of Massmart’s mega distribution centre.

Other, older industrial nodes in the north including Mount Edgecombe, Springfield Park, Pheonix Industrial Park and North Coast Road have also seen tremendous growth and development of late with demand from a rental and sales point of view increasing dramatically.

Much of the success of the north is due to the availability of large tracts of vacant land, allowing for the development of massive warehouses and distribution centres. This has come at the expense of the Durban’s southern industrial suburbs, mostly attributable to non-availability of large parcels of land

A further indication of the North’s growth is the massive new R25 Billion Cornubia development located between Durban and the King Shaka Airport. Cornubia is a mixed-use, mixed-income, 1 200 hectare development, with 80 hectares earmarked for industrial development and the rest for commercial, housing and other social and public facilities.

The demand within Cornubia Business and Industrial Estate has been good with more than 90% of the vacant land already being sold to mainly reputable developers and end-users (such as JT Ross, Afrox, Bidvest, Redefine, Zenprop, etc).

Despite the tightness of the market, agents and property valuers are reporting good demand, both in terms of sales and rentals, together with significant increases in property values for improved and vacant industrial property in the north. As the airport moved north, the south has shrunk in significance and coupled with scarcity of new land for development, the north is set to go from strength to strength.