New Riverside hotel a first of its kind
The development of the new boutique hotel in Mbombela is being done by all local role players.
MBOMBELA – The capital city may be short on housing, if one purveys property prices in town, but there is no shortage of large shiny buildings to house the local offices of multinational corporations here.
Standing on the building site of the Riverside Boutique Hotel in Riverside, west of the R40 towards White River with the beehive of the provincial legislature building visible in the distance, one is struck by the scale of development all around.
And as Mr Paul Schumann points out, not one of these have been built entirely by local private enterprise. But he changed that as the architect of the Riverside Boutique Hotel.
It started when Schumann, from Tasker & Schumann Architects, was approached by Ms Karlien and Mr Theo van der Westhuizen who wanted to open a hotel. An exclusive hotel not owned by a large group.
Schumann had just the investor for the job, developer Mr Hans Geldenhuys. A vocal admirer of Geldenhuys, Schumann says he just climbs in and does something. And so the hotel’s construction started about a month ago.
But Schumann aimed to have everyone working on the project to be local contractors, for a change. And he succeeded.
“All the existing buildings had either consultants or developers or someone, usually from Gauteng, working on them. What is nice about this hotel, is each person is local. Especially since it is a hotel. It is not a corporate group doing the developing.”
Aside from the client, the operators and himself, Schumann appointed Mr Danny Shaw as quantity surveyor, Mr Stefan Triegaardt and Mr Chris Triegaardt of Consolv Consulting Engineers as structural engineers, Mr Francois Pieterse and Mr Nico Pieterse of PLP Consulting Engineers as electrical engineers, and Mr Chris Breet and Mr Renard Breet of Breet Construction as building contractors.
To start with, Riverside Boutique Hotel will have 73 rooms to book. “It is upmarket, but it is something different, something unique,” Schumann explains.
For one thing, it is not built from a cookie-cutter plan, but rather unusual with, in this case an open-plan bathroom featuring a separate, larger shower.
“It is geared to be a step above most other hotels in terms of pricing and service.”
