Hermanus Station Mall is a mixed retail development on Hermanus’s old railway station property on the corner of Lord Roberts and Royal Streets. The build included ground-floor shops, basement parking and 35 apartments on the first and second floors, as well as the civil works surrounding the building. At the time, the mall was Isipani’s largest single-value project for Shoprite Checkers. The company had until that point only done a few refurbishment projects for Shoprite Checkers. The project was negotiated by Rinus van der Sluys and Jacques Wilken. Although the project was completed before the start of the main holiday season, construction work had to be done in close cooperation with the local authority to manage the traffic and roadworks during the construction phase. An additional component of the project was to refurbish the old railway station building used by Hermanus’s tourism office.

A coffee shop was added, and the doors of the outbuildings were used as decorative features in the coffee shop. The decorative discs were designed by Hannes Meiring (1934 – 2010), an architect and graphic artist who was passionate about the preservation of South Africa’s architectural heritage. The four designs were created to reflect the town’s environment: proteas and wine, whales and fishes, boats and yachts, and Khoi kraals.

Hermanus has an interesting railway history, mostly because the railway station was never used — all thanks to Sir William Hoy. Sir William became the general manager of the South African Department of Railways in 1910 and was a frequent visitor to Hermanus. Local businessmen were keen for him to use his influence to extend the then new branch line from Bot River to Hermanus. They were so sure that he would, that they even built a railway station in anticipation of the event. Sir William would have none of it because steam trains, he said, would change the character of the town just as it had done to villages like Muizenberg and Kalk Bay. He was so against the idea of a railway service to Hermanus that he even established a coach service between Hermanus and Bot River.