Retail

The man saving South Africa’s biggest shopping malls

Kirsten Minnaar • 7 March 2026

As managing director of Flanagan & Gerard Property Group, Paul Gerard oversees malls across South Africa and is leading the turnaround of the country’s largest shopping centre, Fourways Mall.

The Flanagan & Gerard Group specialises in developing and revitalising dominant regional shopping centres and high-end community malls. The group handles everything from design and construction to asset management and centre leasing.

Flanagan & Gerard has been involved with managing and reviving several notable shopping malls across South Africa. This includes South Africa’s biggest mall – Fourways.

When faced with rising vacancies and declining footfall, Accelerate Property Fund, which co-owns Fourways Mall with Azrapart, partnered with Flanagan & Gerard as its asset manager.

The group worked to transform the mall, with changes that led to vacancies dropping from 24% in December 2023 to 13% in May 2025.

Flanagan & Gerard’s portfolio also consists of other well-known shopping centres, such as Boardwalk Mall, Ballito Junction, and Mall of the North.

Recently, the group also acquired full ownership of the R640 million Morningside Shopping Centre in Sandton, which it has co-owned since 2008.

Speaking on The Money Show with Stephen Grootes, Gerard explained what makes a shopping centre successful, and how they are rescuing the biggest mall in the country.

“Some shopping centre developers choose to develop shopping centres based on the income stream they think they’re going to achieve, and don’t really focus on the ultimate end user,” Gerard said.

“It’s all about customer experience. There’s so much variety and so many shopping centres out there. Unless you’re focusing on the end user – the consumer – and making it the easiest possible journey for the consumer, you’re missing out.”

Music, lighting, and parking

Being conveniently located is one of the biggest drawcards any shopping centre can have. Apart from the location, though, Gerard said there are many other things which can be done to make a shopping centre more appealing to customers.

This includes, for example, the background music which plays in shopping centres. “When it’s really busy, you don’t hear it,” he explained.

“But when it’s quiet, it keeps you company, because it’s not nice walking around an empty shopping centre. Especially early in the morning when people aren’t there, it’s a little eerie. So, having that little background sound is useful.”

Gerard explained that something else which is absolutely crucial to the feeling of a shopping centre is the lighting.

“Lighting is something we spend a lot of time and a lot of money on, because lighting is very subjective and it plays a big role in one’s emotional feel of the shopping centre,” he explained.

It is also crucial to ensure that, in shopping centres with structured parking, there is adequate lighting. Even if the security is excellent, Gerard said customers will feel unsafe if the lighting levels are low.

Parking areas are among the most important parts of shopping centres. This was also a particular area of distress when Flanagan & Gerard took over Fourways Mall two years ago.

“As you entered, there was conflict. There were cars parked in the way, and you always had to make a turn,” Gerard explained.

To solve this issue, he said they simplified parking so customers could flow in and find a space more easily. They also added directional signage, something which was notoriously lacking across the entire mall.

The tenants

A key thing which no shopping centre can exist without is anchor tenants, stores like Checkers and Woolworths, which drive foot traffic. The number and type of anchors will vary based on the type, size and location of each mall.

While these retailers typically pay lower rent, they drive business towards the line shops, which make up most of the shopping centre’s rental income.

To drive the most foot traffic, Gerard explained that anchor tenants should “bookend” the shopping centre. By placing anchors at opposite ends of a shopping centre, this ensures a flow of energy throughout.

For example, at Morningside, Clicks and Pick n Pay are located downstairs, while Woolworths and restaurants like Tashas are located upstairs.

Beyond the anchor retailers, it is also crucial to get the rest of the tenant mix right. This was a priority when the group took on Fourways Mall.

“We closed the nightclub there because you don’t really want people drinking and people bringing their kids to the same place,” Gerard said.

“You want to bring a complementary type of retail to the same place, and we prefer shopping centres that are family-oriented rather than drinking-oriented.”

While Fourways Mall’s size poses a challenge, it also presents an opportunity to house unique retailers – something Flanagan & Gerard made sure to take advantage of.

The mall is home to South Africa’s flagship Bounce, Total Ninja, The Urban Playground skate park, padel, and Bloc 11 – the only climbing gym of its kind in Johannesburg. It is also home to the country’s only Shooters, an international adult arcade.

“We’ve tried to bring in many people for reasons other than shopping, because Fourways Mall was volumeless, and it had a lot of vacancies. We needed to create energy, and then we’d populate the retail around the energy,” Gerard said.

He explained that the group is still working to expand the tenant mix in and around Fourways Mall to draw more customers.

“We’re creating a very unique space on the corner of Cedar and Witkoppen – which we’ll be opening later this year – which is going to include a whole bunch of high-end quality restaurants and delis,” he said.

To measure the performance of both the mall and individual stores, the group uses cameras which are positioned over the mall’s entrance to get an idea of who’s walking in and out.

They also get data from people who pay for parking. Gerard explained that around 25% to 30% of the customers who visit Fourways arrive by taxi. They can measure this because the mall has a large taxi holding facility.

They also receive turnover reports from retailers, which show the revenue they generate each month. “We use that to identify whether a retailer is struggling or whether an area of the mall is underperforming,” he said.

When an entire section is struggling, Gerard said they look at ways to bring new energy to that area to assist the retailers.

If only one specific retailer is underperforming, though, they have a conversation with them to determine how they can help. “Some retailers are beyond help, and sometimes you need to find a replacement,” he said.

Fourways Improvement District

Interestingly, Gerard explained that when it came to revitalising Fourways Mall, they didn’t only focus on fixing the shopping centre itself.

“We said to the powers that be, which were the owners and the banks that are all representing Fourways, that we don’t believe that you’re going to fix Fourways Mall by just looking at Fourways Mall,” he said.

“We actually had to look at the whole precinct. So, we put together a Fourways Improvement District.”

They approached all the major landowners in the area, including Tsogo Sun, which owns Montecasino, Burstone, Steyn City, Dainfern Golf Estate, and Fourways Gardens Estate.

They formed the voluntary Fourways Improvement District to revitalise the area’s commercial and residential landscape for growth.

The group also approached the Gauteng Roads and Transport Department with the “Adopt a Robot” campaign idea, aimed at fixing non-operational traffic lights around Johannesburg.

“We’ve also planted trees, we’re getting street lights working, and we’ve been working with the taxis and hawkers to clean up the streets,” he said.

“It’s not a perfect science. It’s a work in progress, but it’s definitely better than it was when we started.”