Music spills out of a surfer bar and onto a clean-swept boardwalk, where a Muslim woman in a long veil negotiates the fare for a ride in a beaded Zulu rickshaw.

Despite Durban's diverse sundowner crowd along the city's beaches, the rickshaw puller doesn't have far to go right now.

The walkway ends just about 200 metres (yards) away in an enormous sandpit, the beginning of nearly five-kilometre (three-mile) long construction project to revamp the city's waterfront.

The 200-million-rand (26 million dollar, 19 million euro) improvements along the beach are part of a broader transformation that has seen a notorious dockside red light district turn into upmarket shops and condos.

When it's finished, the 15-metre-wide (50-foot) walkway will link the uShaka beach - near the mouth of the harbour to Africa's busiest port - to the distinctive arch of the new Moses Mabhida Stadium, venue for seven World Cup matches, including a semi-final.

The renovations include building sleek, open-plan restaurants and shops, which will lie just below the sightlines of the waterfront hotels, a hodgepodge of art deco design and modernist blocks.

For many locals, the only problem with the redevelopment is that just one block off the beach runs Point Road, a street synonymous with gangs and dockside prostitution.

"It's got a sort of Nigerian gangster vibe," said Donatella D'Aloisio, who is part of a nascent business boom that is transforming that image.

The southern tip of the beachfront, known as The Point, has been resurrected with high-ended condos, the family-friendly water park uShaka Marine World and canals plied by gondoliers.

One year ago D'Aloisio moved into what had been a derelict police station and fire house, now renovated as Ciao Bella Cafe.

She also lives nearby, and says her customers' chatter about the redevelopment has moved from skeptical to enthusiastic.

"They're becoming more positive because of 2010, they're saying it is possible to fix up a bad area," she said.

Hoping to soften the neighbourhood's image, the city has renamed Point Road as Mahatma Gandhi Road, after the Indian independence hero who lived in Durban as a young lawyer at the turn of the last century.

Durban will be one of the few parts of South Africa that will stay warm during the World Cup, held during the austral winter when temperatures dip toward freezing in the rest of the country.

Thousands of fans have already announced plans to camp on school grounds and cricket fields around the city, raising hopes that many will choose to walk from the stadium and its 106-metre (348-foot) central arch.

"A lot of poeple will use the walkway, I think it's a brilliant idea," D'Aloisio said. "You can park your car and walk all the way from to stadium to uShaka."

"They've just restored shipping houses and dockhouses," she said. "The buildings down here are really, really beautiful."

The city has also deployed a fleet of shiny new buses to upgrade the public transport, and the King Shaka International Airport is expected to open in May, in time for the World Cup.

Still, much of the old Point Road remains an eyesore in one of the city's most tourist-friendly areas, but locals believe the sprawling construction projects will change that image.

"I've lived inland for four years now, but I come home every month," said Raj Panday, 32, a Durbanite who works outside Johannesburg but is still drawn to the warm beaches.

"After they are done with the renovated and revamped Durban, it will be better than Cape Town, or any other city in South Africa," he said. - Sapa

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