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Downtown Durban’s property market is ripe with opportunity, but who will harness this best?

In March, former Deputy Mayor Belinda Scott announced she was leaving the eThekwini Municipality to join Jonny Friedman’s inner-city property regeneration company Urban Lime. The partnership offers prospects. One is a seasoned politician, the other an experienced businessman.

The announcement comes at an interesting time. The commercial market has been pounded by the Covid pandemic and while the hustle and bustle has returned to the streets, there are swathes of vacant offices.

Friedman developed a reputation for property revamps in London in the 1990s, and after investments in Cape Town, turned his sights to Durban. Amongst the successes has been a make-over of Florida Road and the creation of a legal quarter around the old Nedbank building on Anton Lembede Street down from the City Hall.

Today the Urban Lime portfolio is 125 000m², with over 50% of the R2,5-billion investment in Durban.

Friedman is as affable as he is astute, a property entrepreneur able to do projects at scale.

During Scott’s brief tenure as deputy mayor she was roundly applauded for social projects, especially involving the homeless.

A straight shooter, Scott is a career politician known for grilling spendthrifts in government. Before being deployed to the eThekwini Municipality by the ANC she was KZN’s no-nonsense MEC for Finance. Her executive role ended a parliamentary tenure of almost three decades.

KZN INVEST spoke to Belinda Scott and Jonny Friedman.

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