Hillbrow's Dorchester revamp complete
The old Dorchester Hotel in Hillbrow has been revamped and converted into social housing by the Johannesburg Housing Company.
Formerly it was a Jewish residential hotel, catering to Hillbrow's early immigrant population - mainly people from central and eastern Europe. As the residential and business constituencies of Hillbrow - and the wider inner city - underwent a significant shift through the 1980s, the Dorchester was bought by two Hungarian brothers.
They opened an adults-only club, and - although no longer residential, but run as a hotel, -they kept the establishment in excellent condition.
The building, on the corner of Goldreich and Twist streets, now offers 64 apartments including bachelor units, one-bedroom flats, and rooms with shared kitchen and bathroom facilities.
"The newly converted and refurbished Dorchester Mansions brings additional social housing to the Joburg inner city, reclaiming another Hillbrow building to deliver decent, affordable residential accommodation," said Juanita Prinsloo, corporate affairs manager of the JHC.
It is close to the Constitutional Court and the Hillbrow Health Care Precinct, and there are schools and parks nearby. It also offers easy access to the city centre, to Wits and the University of Johannesburg, and to Joburg's northern suburbs.
The building is nearly fully let.
"Twenty years on and the Dorchester is once again a residential building - providing social housing for rent for a new wave of people moving into the Joburg inner city," said Prinsloo.
The JHC purchased the building in late 2008 and continued to run it as a hotel, with some interim modifications, while investigating the design options for its conversion to residential apartments.
When the hotel was closed in June so that conversion work could begin, JHC donated all the hotel's beds, pillows, linen, blankets, towels, kitchenware and other hospitality furnishings and equipment to a number of needy community organisations in the neighbourhood, including the Twilight Children's Shelter in Hillbrow and the Itumeleng Old Age Home in Soweto.
The basement, reception and former hotel lounges at street level have not yet been converted, and the JHC is considering various options that would make these spaces most useful to the community - whether as business premises, or for community services, or as facilities for social functions and gatherings.
The JHC is an independent, private sector, social housing institution. Since 1995 it has pioneered the development of social housing for low and moderate-income earners in the inner city and beyond.
The eKhaya Neighbourhood Improvement Programme, which the JHC initiated in lower Hillbrow in 2004, in an area where it owns four buildings, now covers a wider stretch of city blocks.
"As more property owners have joined the eKhaya Neighbourhood Association, it has made a significant impact in the upgrading of buildings and improving neighbourhood cleanliness and security
"With another cluster of well-kept and well-managed social housing buildings now emerging in upper Hillbrow, the benefits of neighbourhood renewal are sure to become evident in this area as well," Prinsloo said.
The Star
Posted at 10:58AM Mar 10, 2010 by Editor in Residential |