[niwell]

In short, no. Despite it's wealth and prominence, Sandton is still a suburban secondary node, akin to somewhere like Century City in Los Angeles, or Buckhead in Atlanta. I can't see anything taller than the Leonardo in the near future as the office market has a relatively high vacancy rate and the high-end residential market can't support anything much larger at the moment. In addition there's increasing competition from Waterfall City and Rosebank, the latter of which is booming in part because it is relatively walkable and accessible to the older upscale suburbs (Sandton's major issue).

On the plus side, many of the older walled off office parks in Sandton are being replaced with more walkable, inclusive mixed use developments and the area is slowly developing a legitimate streetlife. The imminent redevelopment of the Summit Precinct and Barloworld lands will be interesting to see for sure. The Gautrain station site (Kgoro Central) has promise if it ever gets off the ground, preferably through ownership change as saying the current owners are incompetent would be a compliment. In addition to this the massive mixed-use Oxford Park precinct linking Rosebank to Illovo and new projects up Rivonia will lead to a pretty solid corridor.

In my mind the CBD is the area to watch and see what happens. The ABSA redevelopment, Jewel City and the recent renos of FNB Bank City are all exciting developments that bode well for the resurgence of the central city. There are a number of smaller sites and redevelopments of hijacked buildings getting off the ground too. It won't be Manhattan, but Joburg CBD does have one of the largest collections of substantial 1920s/30s art deco structures outside of New York. Many of which have been recently renovated (Anstey's building, for instance) are are in surprisingly good shape.