Shopping centres are becoming the community base of daily life: transport hubs, marketplaces, digital access points and public spaces. Vuso Majija, Executive Director of Fortress Retail, explains why landlords must now design for people’s needs, not just places to transact.
A commuter steps off a taxi, collects their social grant, buys groceries, picks up fruit from a trader, browses the internet on the free Wi-Fi, enjoys a meal with friends and watches their kids in the play area before heading home. In a single visit, the shopping centre has been a transport stop, a bank, a market, an internet café and a social space.
That is the reality Majija sees across Fortress’s retail portfolio. “Traditionally, shopping centres have been very transactional, and we’ve got to think beyond that now,” he says. “Whether a centre is in a suburb, a CBD, a township or a rural town, it is part of people’s daily routine.”
That shift changes the landlord’s job. “The question used to be: which tenants can we fill this space with? Now it is: what does this community need, and how do we make it easier to meet those needs all in one place?” says Majija. “That is the challenge for us, and it is one we embrace with excitement.”
Built around the journey
That routine starts with how people get to the centre. In townships, rural towns and CBDs, most shoppers arrive by taxi or on foot, so every trip carries a transport cost on top of what they spend. So, the centre needs to be close to its catchment area to reduce the cost and effort to reach the centre. At suburban centres, most come by car and want to park close to the shops. “Here, convenience is just as important,” Majija says.
AbaQulusi Plaza in Vryheid, northern KwaZulu-Natal, shows what designing for commuters means in practice. During its redevelopment, Fortress worked with the municipality, taxi associations and bus operators to move the taxi rank next to the centre and expand it into an intermodal transport facility. It now handles more than 300 taxis and close to 100 buses a day, and the centre is the last retail stop for commuters heading home. “Our job as landlord is to design for that whole journey, not just for the tenants inside our walls,” he says.
Formal and informal, side by side
That journey often includes a stop at an informal trader: roughly 30% of shoppers at Fortress centres buy from informal traders alongside the centres. About 116 traders operate outside Park Central in the Joburg CBD, and around 120 at Evaton Mall. At AbaQulusi, Fortress went further, bringing traders who had worked outside the centre into their own kiosks in the bus and taxi rank.
“It starts with not seeing informal traders as a problem to remove,” says Majija. “When traders are designed into a centre’s plans rather than pushed out, the centre becomes a local hub for the community.”
Connectivity as access
The commuter checking job listings on the centre’s Wi-Fi is no accident. Fortress centres offer free Wi-Fi, which shoppers use to look for work, study and stay connected. “Job applications, banking, government services and even schoolwork increasingly happen online, but mobile data is still expensive for many South Africans,” Majija says. For many, the centre is one of the few places they can reliably get online for free.
The same technology helps Fortress understand its shoppers. Footfall counts and Wi-Fi analytics show when people visit and how long they stay, which guides tenant mix, promotions and events. “Technology is not replacing the role of shopping centres; it is enhancing it,” he says.
Beyond the boundary
“A centre can only be as healthy as the area around it,” says Majija. At some centres, Fortress has built play areas and soccer and netball courts open to the community. Near Park Central, it helped refurbish the historic Donald Mackay Park and is now working with the City of Joburg on Joubert Park.
In many neighbourhoods, a well-run centre is one of the few safe, well-maintained public spaces nearby. Families come for the shops and stay for the play areas; local teams use the sports courts. “When a centre becomes part of how people live, not just where they spend, it earns its place in the community,” says Majija.
Applying the lens to Balfour
Fortress is now bringing that thinking to its newest acquisition. In May 2026, it bought a 51% controlling stake in Tradecco Properties, owner of Balfour Mall in Highlands North, Joburg, in a R175m deal alongside shared-value investors Consolidated Urban and Forever Young Capital. The 37,000m² centre serves densely populated northern suburbs and sits on the commuter routes linking the inner city with Alexandra.
The plan goes beyond a refurbishment. Alongside upgrades to infrastructure, tenant mix, security and public spaces, the partners intend to regenerate the wider precinct, with the redeveloped centre targeted to reopen in 2027. Fortress CEO Steven Brown has described the mall as having “enormous untapped potential”.
“Balfour has a strong catchment, real commuter flows and a long history in the area,” says Majija. “Our job is to make it a place the neighbourhood depends on again: somewhere people can shop, connect, reach services and spend time safely. We will apply the same lens we use everywhere: start with people’s needs and design the centre around them.”
What comes next
Demand for well-run centres remains strong: vacancy in Fortress’s core retail portfolio was 0.9% (by income) at June 30 2026. With new greenfield supply slowing, Majija expects existing centres that are well managed, well located and well tenanted to benefit further. The next step is making them work harder through redevelopment, solar, water backup and smart metering, and by becoming collection points for online orders. “Owners and developers will need to plan with their partners rather than around them,” he says.
And the industry’s biggest misconception? That formal and informal retail can’t coexist. “Shopping centres in township, rural and CBD areas exist and flourish alongside informal retail,” says Majija.
For him, that is the point. “A centre that meets people’s needs, from the taxi rank to the Wi-Fi to the trader at the door, becomes the base a community builds its day around,” he says. “That is the kind of centre we want to own and run.”