Big changes for Cape Town’s tallest building
The bottom nine floors of Cape Town’s tallest building, the Portside Tower, is up for sale as Accelerate Property Fund (APF) attempts to slash its debt burden.
The tower’s anchor tenant, FNB, has released a statement explaining that the entire tower is not for sale, saying it remains committed to its office space in Portside.
Portside, as it is commonly known, has become one of the iconic features of the city’s skyline and is built on land that was once half-owned by Donald Trump.
First conceived in 2008, the building was meant to be a hotel that would reach as high as 150 metres.
The Trump Organisation and Devland had a 50-50 partnership and planned to develop residential property and hotels in South Africa worth over R5 billion.
One of these sites was where the Portside Tower now stands. Property broker Ash Müller said that rumour has it Trump was denied his desired height when he proposed building a Trump Tower. As a result, the land was passed on to Old Mutual and FirstRand.
The project was valued at R1.6 billion in 2008 and was the first significant skyscraper developed in Cape Town’s CBD in over a decade.
Due to the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) and challenges in securing a hotel management contract, the project was put on hold for a few years.
After the design was altered to reduce the height of the building so as not to obscure the view of Table Mountain, construction began in late 2010.
Strangely, for a joint initiative, Old Mutual and FirstRand wanted to be able to provide two different addresses for each of them to use from the same building.
Thus, the building came to occupy an entire city block to enable Old Mutual’s address to be on Bree Street and FirstRand’s on Buitengracht Street.
Over time, Old Mutual began concentrating its office space near its headquarters in Pinelands, pushing it to sell its office space in Portside.
Nine floors were snapped up by Accelerate, which leases out the space to corporate clients, while FirstRand continues to occupy the rest of the building.
Accelerate in deep trouble

Accelerate has come under immense pressure in recent years, largely due to the poor performance of its stake in Fourways Mall.
South Africa’s largest shopping centre has lurched from problem to problem in recent years, with its vacancy rate rising and the value of the property plummeting.
Since the 2020 financial year, the first reporting period since the mall expansion, the mall has suffered several downward fair value adjustments.
Asset fair values are reduced when performance suggests they are worth less than what is reported in the company’s books.
Accelerate Property Fund, which owns 50% of Fourways Mall, has been forced to reduce its stake from a value of R4.8 billion to R3.9 billion today in four years.
The mall’s challenges have also significantly impacted Accelerate Property Fund revenue over the last four years.
Accelerate’s total revenue has experienced a continuous downward trend since the mall opened its doors.
From 2019 to 2024, the property manager has seen its revenue tumbling from R1.2 billion to only R819 million.
This has translated into a string of substantial losses for the company, forcing it to consider selling assets to raise capital.
On 23 December 2024, Accelerate revealed that it would be selling some of its best assets to reduce its debt and ease the financial pressure on the company.
This includes the nine floors in the Portside Tower, which it valued at around R900 million.
It has also put Oceana’s head office in the Foreshore in Cape Town up for sale, alongside the Thomas Pattullo building in the CBD.
The company’s Johannesburg assets have not been spared from the fire sale, with The Buzz Shopping Centre and Waterford Center in Fourways set to be sold.
Accelerate did not include any of the values of these assets in its interim results for the six months to 30 September. It has only not revealed any potential buyers for these properties.
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