For some 60 years Lewis Stores have owned a high profile site on Victoria Road, the central thoroughfare through Woodstock that later becomes the well-known Main Road and runs all the way to Simon's Town. On Lewis Stores' site there was originally a two-storey office building. This was later converted into a double-parking garage. The Lewis group now plans to extend it upwards to provide seven floors in all, four for parking and three for office floors.
When the original plans were passed in 1972 approval for a building of this height was in fact granted. However, the structural design at that time allowed for a 4,5m set back from floor three upwards, in terms of the zoning regulations. This would have reduced the typical floors to a size of less than 400sq m, far too small to be of real value to most 21st Century developers.
Lewis Stores have therefore applied for and in principle obtained permission to extend the typical floors all the way upwards to the ground floor building line, thereby creating typical floors of 1,000sq m, inclusive of the central foyer and toilet areas. The departure application has not been approved yet but as the local authorities were involved in the design changes, it is likely to be accepted soon.
However, the redesign calls for a complicated new underpinning of the existing foundation footings. This is necessary, because when the building was converted to parking, several of the original support columns were removed, thereby weakening the structure.
Tenders will be called for from specialist piling contractors to do the underpinning, and they will submit a design for the piles.
The new piles, says Johan van Huysteen, an MBB project manager, could be drilled through the existing footings but will probably be positioned next to them and tied in to them by means of 300 mm to 500 mm deep lateral beams.
Although the existing building has little architectural merit, it is part of a heritage area and the architect was asked to conform to certain City Council aesthetic rulings that are likely to become guidelines for any future development in Woodstock's Victoria Road.
The current design harmonises with existing buildings in the area. It has a plaster and facebrick façade with regularly spaced windows and a Mansard style roof in sheet metal for the top floor.
The office windows on the remainder of the façade will extend from the ground floor to within a few millimetres of the ceiling level and will lead out onto small Juliet balconies faced with attractive black steel balustrades.
The FNB Bank that currently occupies a corner of the building will remain on the premises.
The office floors will be A-Grade with suspended ceilings, down-lighting, sophisticated fire control by means of sprinklers and a centrally controlled air-conditioning system.
When complete in 15 months, the building will have a market value of around R30m.
For more information contact 021 887 1026.
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