THE new Reef Hotels Gold in Joburg’s central business district is a breath of fresh air in an area that consists mainly of nondescript office blocks.
The elegant hotel is situated on the corner of Harrison and Anderson streets and is co-owned by property developer Isaac Chalumbira and hotelier Gustav Krampe. It has a 120 rooms – divided into standard rooms and deluxe suites – a food market, an inside bar and a roof top bar that is still under construction.
Chalumbira was a guest speaker at the 2010 Halala Joburg Awards, where he spoke about the effects of commercial and residential investments in the city.
The reception and dining areasThe reception and dining areas
Each room has a television set, coffeemaker, telephone, safe, hairdryer and a bathroom, those in the deluxe suites have a spa bath and a shower; standard rooms only have a shower.
The interior of the hotel has a warm and inviting feel to it that is created by dim lighting and comfortable furniture.
There is 18-hour room service, laundry and dry cleaning services, luggage store room, fax, mail and photocopying facilities, as well as secretarial services on request. There is also a travel and information desk, ample parking space and a conference facility for up to 160 delegates.
Taking into account its location in the middle of the city, the owners have invested in photographs themed Celebrating the City of Gold. The cover Joburg’s architecture, historical gold mines and equipment and other elements of the city’s past and present.
Each floor has a subtheme – so, for example, one floor has the subtheme of Bridges. Every artwork on that floor represents a bridge that has significant history and meaning to the city.
According to Chalumbira, the Reef Hotel concept was conceived just 14 months ago when he noted a glaring need for more hotel accommodation concurrent with Joburg’s rejuvenation.
Joburg CBD
“The Joburg CBD is where it is at for commerce in South Africa right now,” he said. “The mines and banks have returned to the inner city, security has been tightened up and transport has improved.
City views and cocktails in the chic bar City views and cocktails in the chic bar
“People are now working, sleeping, eating and meeting in the CBD, but the city is in desperate need of an integrated service offering which gives them all of this and at the highest level,” he explained.
The building that is today Reef Hotels Gold was an office block in the late 1970s and early ’80s.
Chalumbira’s company, Lionshare Holdings, and Krampe’s African Sky Hotel Group are in charge of the running of the hotel.
Born and bred in Zimbabwe, Chalumbira came to South Africa when he was only 17 in 1988. He studied theology in Durban for two years before deciding that he did not really want to be a priest. He moved on to industrial psychology, studying part time through the University of South Africa, or Unisa, for a year.
“I then decided that it would be good for me to go to study full time so I went to the University of Cape Town and did a BSC in industrial psychology,” Chalumbira explained.
He came to Joburg 16 years ago to work for Procter and Gamble, a multinational corporation that manufactures a wide range of consumer goods. He later went on to work for Coca-Cola.
In 2003, he left the corporate world and in the next three years bought his first building in Bellevue. Since then, Chalumbira has bought, developed and sold over 20 buildings.