#Dihlabeng Regional Shopping Centre - 27 000m2 - Bethlehem | Complete

Dihlabeng Mall in Bethlehem offers a GLA of 24,142 sqm located in the Free State region, near the Bethlehem Peermont Casino. With several anchored national tenants such as Standard Bank, Truworths, Woolworths and Checkers we endeavour to provide a formalised shopping experience for the greater region growing and expanding the community of Bethlehem. It will carry through the existing look and feel of our previous as well as existing centres. Excellent facilities will be included, such as good restaurants, clothing and main anchor tenants. Its shoppers are sophisticated and its target market includes those in the top LSMs (Living Standards Measure).

Click to expand...

Site Plan

We are very excited about the opening of our new regional mall in Bethlehem. Besides the anchors mentioned here, the mall will also enjoy full representation from all the national fashion retailers, including the Ackermans Group, the Foschini Group, the Pepkor Group, the Mr Price Group and the Truworths Group.

This development is a joint venture between Foundation Capital, RPP Developments and Investec Properties. Once phase 2 is complete, the mall will boast a GLA of almost 32,000m². Construction is well under way and we are on track to open in March 2013.

Click to expand...

http://foundationcapital.co.za/portfolio/dihlabeng-mall/

Bethlehem is doing quite well for itself and is one of the better runned municipalities in the FS. Kroonstad used to be far ahead of Bethlehem, but unfortunately deteriorating fast due to bad municipal management.

Bethlehem also has 2 excellent high schools, of which one is getting an indoor heated pool.

The towns around Bethlehem are all agricultural towns. A lot of them are producers of labour intensive crops like potatoes and apples, which offeres a lot of seasonal employment for at least half a year, but these temporary job opportunities will decline a lot due to the new minimum wage.

Small towns like Reitz and Frankfort have quite good schools as well and both of them has more industry than what one would expect for towns of that size. Reitz is home to the head offices of VKB (One of the remaining independant agricultural cooperations, which aquired NWK, the cooperation in Limpopo) VKB recently entered the chicken business under the Grainfields banner and broiler barns are going up all around the area.
Frankfort is also home to a grain mill and bread bakery, Super Sure, which is giving Sasko and the like a serious run for their money and the locals are constantly raving about the quality of their loafs.

Although all the municipalities in the area are largely ANC, the Nketoana municipality was the only one in the FS to have received an unqualified audit in the 2011 financial year and the DA also grabbed a huge rural ward from the ANC in the last municipal elections in that municipality.

Compared to Heilbron, which falls under the Parys muni, the towns of Reitz and Frankfort are very clean and well managed, although there are still opportunity for improvement.

^ At your service.