Shoprite Checkers selling a prominent shopping mall in Cape Town
Shoprite Checkers is selling the prominent Sitari Village Centre in Croydon, Cape Town, to FPG Holdings.
The Sitari Village Shopping Centre services a large residential development, Sitari Country Estate, between the R102 and N2 near Somerset West.
The Sitari Country Estate is a lifestyle development with 3,150 residential properties and a Curro private school.
The estate’s shopping centre, the Sitari Village Mall, was developed for Shoprite Checkers and covers an area of 49,351 square meters with 11,105 square meters of lettable retail space.
The civil works surrounding the mall included 550 parking bays and the shopping centre has three anchor tenants, Checkers, Woolworths and Dis-Chem Pharmacy.
Work on the Sitari Village Shopping Centre started in November 2018, and the site was handed over at the end of 2019.
The Sitari Village Mall made headlines in 2022 after becoming the first shopping centre to run entirely on renewable energy from wind and solar sources.
The extensive renewable energy investment is part of Checkers’ commitment to environmental sustainability.
It came as the retailer launched an environmental campaign to drive further awareness and dialogue around this issue.
Checkers Sitari runs entirely off renewable energy from a 635kWp rooftop solar PV installation and an agreement with Eskom’s Renewable Energy Tariff (RET) programme.
The Sitari Village Mall generates 35% of its electricity from its rooftop solar PV system. The remaining 65% is sourced via the RET programme from Eskom’s wind plant.
This is enough to power the entire centre, including the Checkers supermarket, entirely on renewables.
Apart from Checkers, Woolworths Food, and Dis-Chem, Sitari Village Centre is also home to Vida e Caffè, HOME and the Sitari Health Shop and Medical Centre.
The shopping centre also features a variety of clothing, health, beauty, and household goods stores, as well as a few restaurants.
Sitari Village Centre getting sold
FPG Holdings Proprietary Limited (FPG Holdings) is buying the Sitari Village Centre from Shoprite Checkers.
FPG Holdings is wholly owned by the FPG Property Fund, which is, in turn, controlled by FPG Investments. Together, they are known as the FPG Group.
The FPG Group invests in and owns office, retail, and industrial properties in the Western Cape, Northern Cape, Gauteng, and North West provinces.
The FPG Group owns various rentable retail centres in the Western Cape Province, including neighbourhood and local convenience retail centres.
The Competition Commission has recommended that the Tribunal approve the proposed transaction without conditions.
“The Commission is of the view that the proposed transaction is unlikely to lessen or prevent competition in any market substantially,” it said.
The Competition Commission said the proposed transaction does not raise significant public interest concerns.
Shoprite Checkers selling shopping centres across South Africa
Over the last few months, Shoprite Checkers has been selling many of its retail shopping centres.
In September 2024, Shoprite Checkers sold the award-winning Drakenstein Centre in Paarl, Western Cape, to FPG Holdings.
The Drakenstein Centre is a 9,000-square-meter shopping mall owned and developed by the Shoprite Group.
In November 2024, Shoprite sold Sandown Retail Crossing to FPG Holdings, which has a national property portfolio.
Sandown Retail Crossing is located on the corner of Wood Drive and Sandown Road in Parklands, Cape Town.
The shopping centre opened in 2012 and has a gross leasable area (GLA) of 26,800 m² with 42 stores.
In January 2025, the Competition Commission approved the transaction whereby Imperial Red will buy the Brookside Mall from Shoprite Checkers.
It is unclear why Shoprite is selling these shopping centres, and the company is unwilling to discuss the issue.
A Shoprite spokesperson explained that they are selling selected properties to focus on its core retail business.
“The sale of these properties will allow the group to allocate resources more effectively towards the continued improvement of its retail offering,” Shoprite said.
Sitari Village Centre Images
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