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Johannesburg – Siemert Road’s Hallmark House is being transformed into a glass-panelled tower of expansive residential apartments, an all-suite luxury hotel and a vibrant mix of health, entertainment and leisure facilities.
The multimillion-rand development is scheduled for completion in May 2016.
Residential sales have already opened and Hallmark House offers a curated lifestyle experience, merging art, design, culture and architecture to appeal to a variety of lifestyle needs. Central to the African aesthetic is the overall minimalist feel, encompassing finishes of the best quality, with interiors reflecting the lines and silhouettes of the surrounding urban metropolis.
The development will be home to apartments with floor-to-ceiling views of the city and surrounds, situated above a secure access-controlled multilevel parking garage and a ground-floor retail space.
The apartments are priced from R495 000. They range insize from 35m² to 300m², and are available as studio,one-bedroom and two-bedroom options, with different-sized terraces and large balconies.
Hallmark House will also have an on-site spa, fully-equipped gym and swimming pool, and residents can kick back at the The Grand Café and Rooftop Bar, situated alongside The Bioscope outdoor cinema. Smack! microbrewery and Firebird roastery are additional tenants in the building.
The 66-metre-high modular structure was originally designed by Greg Cohen in the early 1970s to house a growing diamond-polishing industry. Flexible and modular in structure, it was versatile enough to house light-industrial, showroom and office spaces.
David Adjaye, who oversees a global architectural practice with offices in London, New York and Accra, is leading the team to transform Hallmark House. Adjaye is currently working on the $360m Smithsonian National Museum of African-AmericanHistory and Culture in Washington DC, while overseeing a luxury condominiumdevelopment of the city’s Four Seasons hotel.
“Aside from being a fellow African, David’s indelible trademark of allowing art, music, science and civic life to permeate his ability to transform disused buildings into architectural masterpieces, is what drove us to appoint him. And it resonates with Propertuity’s core purpose of combining design in all forms with culture to enliven degenerated neighbourhoods,” says Jonathan Liebmann, CEO of Propertuity, the visionary and developer behind Maboneng Precinct and Hallmark House.
“The rate at which Maboneng Precinct has developed since 2008 is solid proof that there’s a thirst for more world-class regeneration of residential, retail and commercial space in Johannesburg’s CBD. Hallmark House will be meeting that need, and more.”
Adjaye says that Johannesburg’s Eastern CBD regeneration is perfectly in line with what is happening around the world, and points at Hackney in London’s East End and New York’s Meatpacking District as examples.
“It’s incredibly exciting to be working with Jonathan to re-envision Johannesburg’s CBD,” he says. “The transformation of Hallmark House is an opportunity to apply fresh thinking to urban communities and to create a new typology that reflects changing lifestyles and a more fluid approach to the way we inhabit cities.”
