Bulawayo mayor David Coltart has admitted that the long-delayed Egodini redevelopment is moving at an "unreasonable slow pace", but insists that a new partnership will see construction resume shortly.
The US$60 million project, originally awarded to Terracotta in 2016, has become a tale of missed deadlines for a city desperate for infrastructural renewal.
In an interview with Southern Eye, Coltart highlighted a significant shift in the project’s design intended to better serve the local economy.
“We have made progress in the Egodini although it is going at an unreasonable slow pace,” Coltart said.
He said council has renegotiated the site's layout to prioritise the city's vast informal trade sector.
“We have agreed to shift the balance between the formal and informal sectors greatly expanding the number of vending sites and the creation of a large market,” the mayor added.
The project’s potential revival hinges on the arrival of a new investor, West Prop Holdings, the firm responsible for the Zimbabwe Mall in Harare.
“They have brought an investor in the form of West Prop Holdings from Harare and we see this as a positive development,” Coltart said.
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He expressed a cautious optimism for the immediate future, noting, “The Egodini project is going ahead and we hope that in the coming few months we will see construction starting again at the site.”
However, the optimism at City Hall is not shared by the public.
Winos Dube, representing the Bulawayo United Residents Association (Bura), described the saga as a "sad issue" that is "no longer an exciting issue to them."
Dube lamented that residents were never consulted during the initial planning stages and questioned if the hub—once compared to South Africa’s Park Station—would ever reach fruition after missing several deadlines since 2019.
Internal council records reveal how close the project came to total collapse.
In December 2024, the city issued a six-month termination notice, citing "abandonment of the site" and "lack of progress."
Terracotta narrowly escaped contract termination in November 2025 after providing a performance bond and proof of funding on October 15.
Consequently, the council extended the termination notice to September 2, 2026, to allow the developer more time to meet its obligations.
Beyond construction delays, the project has sparked governance tensions.
Council management recently moved to rescind a resolution allowing councillors to engage Terracotta directly, arguing that such administration falls strictly under the town clerk’s office.
Meanwhile, some councillors have fought to retain their oversight roles given the significant public interest and the site's history of failure.
If completed, Egodini will be Bulawayo’s first major infrastructure completion in decades.
The city's last major project, the Bulawayo Centre shopping mall in 2007, remains incomplete to this day.
With a revised programme pointing to a possible construction restart in early 2026, the city waits to see if this latest chapter will finally deliver the modern transport hub residents were promised.
