Iconic Mall of Africa installs Turnstar automatic bollards
Launched on 28 April 2016, Midrand’s Mall of Africa is South Africa’s largest shopping mall ever built in a single phase. The mall has 6 500 parking bays, contains 130 000 m2 of retail space and houses over 300 shops (2.4 km of shopping), including several anchor tenants.
This super-mall represents the heart of the ambitious Waterfall project – a city developed beyond the scale of anything else in South Africa. Waterfall is a new living, working, retail area between Johannesburg and Pretoria, situated on a 2 200-hectare tract of land triangulated between Woodmead, Kyalami and Midrand, formerly known as the farm Waterval.
The R5-billion Mall of Africa development plays hosts to thousands of shoppers and continuous deliveries to major retailers Checkers, Edgars, Game, Woolworths, the Foschini Group, Mr Price and Truworths add to the volume of traffic entering and leaving the facility daily. An emphasis on shopper safety as well as the security of delivered goods is tantamount and is addressed through 14 automatic bollards supplied by Turnstar.
The bollards, which are automatically raised and lowered using remote control are situated in various strategic points throughout the facility. Craig Sacks, MD of Turnstar explains that seven automatic bollards are installed on a pedestrian walkway and public space areas and will be used for special vehicle access. Four of the automatic bollards are located at entrances for shopper vehicles and will prevent vehicle ramming. A further three are sited at the entrances for the service and delivery vehicles to maintain tight access control to the loading and offloading docks at all times.
Automatic rising bollards are intended for controlling access to a site, while protecting it from any attempt at vehicular intrusion. Their discrete and elegant design allows a harmonious integration at the entrances of prestigious sites. In the raised position, these retractable bollards close a road to vehicles, without restricting access by pedestrians. In the lowered position, they are hidden, allowing access to vehicles.
Automatic telescopic rising and retracting bollards are housed in an extremely strong sleeve which telescopes out of or into pavement or road surface in approximately 5 seconds, using a powerful hydraulic ram when the user provides the necessary command signal from a remote fob or a button in the intercom.
The 14 Turnstar bollards were manufactured from 200 mm diameter 304 grade brushed stainless steel, are 600 mm high and are fitted with flashing LED lights for increased visibility.