Civitas Tower Refurbishment - Pretoria

dysan1 said:

whats the point of a government highrise?? Very surprised they would bother redoing it. yeah, put a before and after together!!

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The point of a government highrise is that you can have all your various departments in one building. In stead of renting out several buildings over a vast area. Doing this saves time and money. The government has always been occupying high-rise buildings, even during the "good" old days. In fact, many of pretoria's fugly high-rises were built by the old government. So because a government office employs just as many (in SA's case more) people than normal businesses, high-rises makes sense. The Civitas tower has always been a government department. Or would you rather they stay in little huts on the outskirts of the city?

The reason for redoing Civitas?

Simple: It was a danger to its occupants. Lifts weren't working (due to age).
Pipes leaked. It flooded at one stage, and documentation was lost. It was cheaper to refurbish it though, than to build a new office space somewhere else. Its all about economics in the end I guess.

And government departments in pretoria have stated that they are for the CBD, and that all departments will be clustered here, apart from forreign affairs, which is closer to the embassies. It is the same principle as with the Gauteng Provincial department in Jozi. Only, pretoria is home to the national departments. So, in short, a high-rise in an area with cheaper rents to anywhere else in the city makes complete economic and strategic sense.

here's the old Civitas, quite an upgrade we got there.