In an innovative move, a Cape Town property developer has created coworking and office space for the inner city’s legal fraternity, thereby enhancing the CBD’s traditional legal precinct. Welcome to the Cape Town Collective.
Cape Town’s past as a British colonial outpost evokes mental images of “legal chambers” that include wood panelling, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and vast mahogany desks.
Modern lawyers, however, live mainly in the cloud with other inhabitants of the knowledge economy, and a high-backed leather chair is about as much use to them as a horsehair wig. What they really need is fast internet, proximity to courts and colleagues, and a good cup of coffee.
Welcome, then, to the Legal Chambers at the Cape Town Collective, a company that provides fully serviced private offices and coworking spaces for legal professionals in a building that occupies an entire city block bound by Wale, Long, Church and Burg Sts. And, according to its website, it’s also just 150 steps and 200 seconds from the Western Cape High Court.
The Legal Chambers’ 60 offices are in three locations recently redeveloped at a cost of R140 million by the Klarey Property Group, and two months after their official launch they’re occupied by attorneys, advocates and legal consultants murmuring mysterious words such as “tort” and “estoppel”.
POST-PANDEMIC LEGAL WORK ERA
Klarey co-founder Jeffrey Kleu says the chambers bring the city’s legal sector fully into the post-pandemic era of work. “The chambers are a centralised, professionally run office solution for independent practitioners and smaller firms who want proximity to court without the admin headache and overhead of traditional offices. We’ve researched the pain points of the legal fraternity and solved them.”
Kleu says the idea for the Legal Chambers in the block’s three interconnected buildings grew out of the post-pandemic changes in lawyers’ working practices. “There’s still a clear need for physical office space, especially for client consultations, court preparation and confidentiality. Lawyers also need efficiency, connectivity and access to quality infrastructure, but many no longer need a traditional office set-up.
“That’s where we come in. Everything in our Legal Chambers has been designed with legal practitioners in mind, from soundproof private offices and formal boardrooms to our facial-recognition, 24-hour access security system and document-handling services.
“We also offer amenities like a court messenger service, high-volume printing, VOIP with call answering and a 1 000 Mbps fibre line. The idea is to reduce friction so that professionals can focus entirely on their legal work.
“The beauty of our space is we have created a community of about 50 law firms and attorneys who now refer work between each other. We are also very close to the High Court, so lawyers don’t have to wait around for their case to be heard. They can relax in their office, the lounges or the café and courtyards.”
PRESTIGE & PRACTICALITY
Kleu says many legal tenants don’t want the burden of long-term commercial leases or managing office infrastructure. “They want a professional, secure, well-maintained space that reflects the seriousness of their work but offers the flexibility today’s world demands.
“We believe we’ve come up with a product that not only helps lawyers do what they need to but also signals to their clients that they mean business.”
The Legal Chambers also offers virtual office packages aimed at legal professionals who don’t want a permanent office but need a credible city centre address, mail handling, a phone line and occasional boardroom access.
“We offer three packages that are particularly attractive to out-of-town practitioners who litigate in Cape Town or firms looking to expand their footprint without setting up full offices,” says Kleu. “We thought it’s about time they had somewhere to sit where they can work, use our printers, grab a shower or network with other lawyers in a casual and relaxed manner.
“The networking element is something we thought would take off, but it’s been a bigger part of the attraction of the space than we expected. Many legal professionals have told us this is the kind of set-up they’ve been waiting for – something that offers prestige and practicality.”
Another coworking space, WorkLab, is aimed at startups. Offices with space for up to three people can be rented for as little as R5 000 a month, and about 90 % of them are tenanted. The rest of the spaces have typical coworking facilities such as private offices, boardrooms and hotdesks.
ARTISTIC SPACES
But tenants here can expect innovative surprises. The two courtyards are about as far from a stuffy office setting as it’s possible to imagine.
That’s largely thanks to the artist Sonny Behan, also known as Sonny Sundancer, whose 360-degree murals have turned one courtyard into a corner of Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable Forest and the other into the home of an eagle ray, which thrive off South Africa’s Atlantic and Indian ocean coasts.
The Gorilla Courtyard (with a large sign saying “Welcome to the jungle”) is dominated by a hyper-realistic image of Bahati, the silverback who leads Bwindi’s Bushaho group of nine gorillas (see a video of Behan working on the mural here). The two-storey underwater mural in the Eagle Ray Courtyard features in a video posted by Behan here.
The interior walls of the Collective’s public spaces are adorned with framed artworks by Behan, who accepted Kleu’s offer to become a shareholder in the building in lieu of payment.
The artist, who splits his time between South Africa and the US, has collaborated with organisations such as World Wildlife Fund, the UN, the UN Children’s Fund, the International Fund for Animal Welfare and Global Citizen to create public art installations around the world.
The courtyards and neighbouring interior spaces can be booked for events of up to 80 people, but they’re also popular with tenants needing a fresh-air break from their desks.
CREATING A WORKABLE INNER CITY
Kleu and his co-founders, Josh Carey and Chris Marsay, arrived in Wale Street fresh from developing two residential buildings – The Harri in the East City and The Duke in Heerengracht. And although he is a Cape Town Central City Improvement District (CCID) board member, Kleu says that this has little to do with his admiration for the organisation’s work.
“If ever you have a problem with anything in the city, you can get the head of that department on the phone within half an hour, and if they can’t solve the problem, they know who can,” he says.
“There are cleaners who work round the clock, and since December we’ve increased the number of Public Safety Officers on the beat in town 24/7, who patrol the CBD and assist tourists and anyone else who needs help or has fallen victim to crime.”
Kleu also pays tribute to the CCID Communications team for the way it keeps Capetonians updated on new developments in the CBD. “That transparency is exciting for investors because they can see who else is investing,” he says. “If three of the top five investors are present, that gives good reason for the other guys to come along and invest as well.”
The payoff comes partly in the numerous international awards Cape Town wins, says Kleu, but also in rising property values. “From an investment point of view, the Cape Town CBD has almost kept up with the growth that Sea Point and the Atlantic Seaboard are experiencing. People want to be here. There’s everything you want from a big city.”
What’s next for the Cape Town Collective? More coworking spaces in the inner city could be on the cards, and there’s been interest from Johannesburg and Durban in taking the concept there.
Kleu says the success of the Legal Chambers has been inspiring. “The point of that collective is to promote the synergies that you get from working under one roof, even as different firms,” he says.
“You’ll see all our lawyers speaking to each other in our shared facilities, they all come to our monthly drinks functions, they all attend the events we host here, whether it’s master classes or speakers on various legal topics.
“They’ve created a legal ecosystem, and it’s a flipping amazing opportunity for them.”
IMAGES: Cape Town Collective
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