News & Discussion: CBD Retail

[Waewick]

Wasn't sure where to post this but could be an interesting little development.

Type: Application Assessed on Merit
Application Number: DA/622/2009/1/A
Lodgement Date: 22/10/2014
Location: 6A-8 Rundle Mall, ADELAIDE SA 5000
Description: Variation to previous authorisation - Undertake internal and external alterations and change the use of the first and second floors to residential accommodation providing a total of six (6) apartments - three (3) on each level - VARIATION - To include a lift to service the upper floors - STAGE 1 - STREET AWNING

Nice pick up. Great outcome too.

[Ben]

Magic Cave still there, and pageant still delivering Father Christmas to it (despite difficulties Tiffany's are causing).

I Just came back from David Jones with no sign of a Magic Cave and only 2 more days in which to set up up. Meanwhile Myers Santaland has been under construction for weeks. it doesn't look good. I will be dissapointed in David Jones if they have completly butchered this Adelaide tradition.

[Allkai]

Magic Cave still there, and pageant still delivering Father Christmas to it (despite difficulties Tiffany's are causing).

I Just came back from David Jones with no sign of a Magic Cave and only 2 more days in which to set up up. Meanwhile Myers Santaland has been under construction for weeks. it doesn't look good. I will be dissapointed in David Jones if they have completly butchered this Adelaide tradition.

Appears as though it's pageant and cave 'business as usual'?

http://www.cupageant.com.au/information/route-map

[Ben]

Magic Cave still there, and pageant still delivering Father Christmas to it (despite difficulties Tiffany's are causing).

I Just came back from David Jones with no sign of a Magic Cave and only 2 more days in which to set up up. Meanwhile Myers Santaland has been under construction for weeks. it doesn't look good. I will be dissapointed in David Jones if they have completly butchered this Adelaide tradition.

Appears as though it's pageant and cave 'business as usual'?

http://www.cupageant.com.au/information/route-map

They will obviously still have a Santa but whether the "Magic Cave" has been scaled back will be seen on Saturday but I seriously fail to see how they would build something of significance in 2 days.

[Allkai]

It's there, just changed locations.

It's one floor down now.

[Ben]

Type: Application Assessed on Merit
Application Number: DA/910/2014
Lodgement Date: 18/11/2014
Location: Escape Travel, 28 Grenfell Street, ADELAIDE SA 5000
Description: Internal and external alterations including signage and change the use from shop to cafe.

Applicant Name: SHAHIN ENTERPRISES - ON THE RUN

[mooshie]

Interesting... OTR moving into the cafe scene now?

[crawf]

I'm guessing it will be similar to their store on North Terrace.

Off topic, but I like the new OTR branding.

[The Scooter Guy]

Lucky 7 (only the one on King William St) will close permanently soon. The other two nearby on Grenfell & Currie St are trading as usual!
The temporary Foot Locker on James Pl has bumped out.
A new Optus shop has opened in Rundle Mall (where Barlow Shoes was).
The Dorsal Fin Cafe at City Cross has its chairs & tables stacked, which tells me that it has also closed and bumped out for unknown reasons.
A new Vodafone shop on King William St is being fitted.

[The Scooter Guy]

Type: Application Assessed on Merit
Application Number: DA/910/2014
Lodgement Date: 18/11/2014
Location: Escape Travel, 28 Grenfell Street, ADELAIDE SA 5000
Description: Internal and external alterations including signage and change the use from shop to cafe.

Applicant Name: SHAHIN ENTERPRISES - ON THE RUN

Escape Travel will relocate from Grenfell St to King William St (where the former Opals store was).

[jk1237]

Interesting article from the Washington Post, and a trend that Australia is a couple years behind on

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/won ... -any-more/

Why no one likes indoor malls any more

By Emily Badger January 6 


There is nothing more photogenic and metaphorical than a dead mall — all those hushed escalators, abandoned mannequins and empty parking lots veined with weeds. The New York Times had a lovely slideshow of just such scenes over the weekend, accompanying another story (of which there are now many) on the demise of the suburban shopping mecca.

The lesson in these images invariably has to do with decay: Look at all that wasted land and the dried-up commerce. As the Times writes, mall trends reflect American income inequality: high-end retail hubs are thriving, while places that once catered to the middle class are closing down. Demographics and technology are implicated in the decline, too. Baby boomers in the suburbs no longer have teens who want to hang out in shopping malls. And physical stores have, supposedly, lost their allure to the Internet.

But there's also a promising trend here that has less to do with economics or technology than with the kinds of places where Americans now want to spend their time (and money). Today, malls that are doing well aren't simply those that cater to the wealthy; they're outdoor "town centers" and "lifestyle centers" that much more closely resemble the old urban downtowns — community centers with sidewalks, public spaces, outdoor restaurants — that the original indoor mall decades ago helped kill.

The mall that's dying is, in fact, a specific kind of mall: It's enclosed, with an anonymous, windowless exterior, wrapped in yards of parking, located off a highway interchange. It's the kind of place where you easily lose track of time and all connection to the outside world, where you could once go to experience air conditioning if you didn't have it at home.

The mall that's viable now is different in some notable ways that go beyond the quality of its brands: It's open-air instead of hermetically sealed, its stores turn outward instead of in, it has restaurants below and apartments above, which means that some people don't even need to drive there. In place of the giant mega-block wrapped in parking, it has its own compact street grid with pedestrian plazas. It feels almost like a neighborhood. It has room for a skating rink.

The death of old-fashioned indoor malls is also the rebirth of shopping hubs that feel more like Main Street. That's a slightly different story — one about the design of retail space rather than the economics behind it — from the death of malls as we often tell it. For decades cities mangled themselves trying to replicate suburban retail downtown, razing buildings for parking garages and highways. Now the reverse is happening: Suburban malls are evolving to feel more like downtowns. Which is vindication if you're an urban planner or someone who never liked malls in the first place.

[jk1237]

and another one from USA today

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2 ... n/4045047/

Are malls becoming extinct? Column

Neil Howe 2:11 p.m. EST December 17, 2013

The economy is partly to blame for struggles, but changes in generations also play a role.

Story Highlights
Many are currently struggling with vacancy rates of 35% to 50%.
Middle-income malls also face another looming pressure: technology.
But Gen Xers and Millennials have shown far less interest in spending time at the mall.

While the financial media are wringing their hands about a year-over-year decline in Black Friday retail sales at America's shopping malls this holiday season, few are mentioning a yet gloomier reality: Many of the malls themselves will soon be shutting down.

According to one estimate, 10% of the nation's 1,000 enclosed malls will fail by 2022. Many are currently struggling with vacancy rates of 35% to 50%. Malls are one more reflection of an increasingly bifurcated economy. Prosperous malls are doing better, while struggling malls (which is to say, most of them) are doing worse.

High-end shopping malls — those catering to households with annual incomes exceeding $100,000 — have largely been insulated from the recession. Since 2001, these malls have reported 60% same-store sales growth among upscale tenants such as Apple and Bloomingdale's.

Meanwhile, lower-end malls have struggled to retain middle-income shoppers. Under financial stress, the beleaguered middle class has traded down from the Gap to Walmart. To stay afloat, these malls are now leasing vacant store space out to non-traditional tenants, including churches and health clinics. Middle- and low-income shoppers now prefer free-standing establishments anchored by several big-box stores, including discount chains such as Target, warehouse clubs such as Costco, or "category killers" such as Best Buy.

Middle-income malls also face another looming pressure: technology. From online to mobile shopping, these malls are losing big in the zero-sum holiday shopping season.

Changing generations

But there's more to this story than the ailing economy and (perhaps) the slow demise of the middle class. There is a generational story behind what's happening to shopping malls. And if you want to know how it will end, you have to pay attention to each generation's role.

Sixty years ago, when the G.I. Generation came home from World War II and built the suburbs and interstates, malls were the gleaming symbols of America's future.

What most impressed the G.I.s (and the Silent Generation who succeeded them) about malls was their enormous efficiency: They brought thousands of brands together and lured customers from the city into suburbia to get their shopping done under one roof.

Then came suburban Boomers, who grew up with these newly minted malls as kids. As they matured, many Boomers soured on what they regarded as the soulless and artificial consumerism of malls and began to champion what business author Joseph Pine calls the "experience economy" — turning stores and restaurants from mere retail outlets into places that mean something (think Rainforest Cafe or Build-a-Bear Workshop or L.L. Bean). That thinking not only inspired more stores to include a "tourism" component, but it also drove the surging popularity of lifestyle centers in the early 1990s. Lifestyle (or town) centers — unlike traditional enclosed malls or strip shopping centers that face parking lots — are usually open-air, landscaped, walkable mixed-use neighborhoods combining business, retail and leisure activities.

Mallrats to other hangouts

These changes meant that Gen Xers never saw the mall as a place to shop. Instead, the mall was more like Disney World: You could see a movie, grab lunch, and even visit an amusement park. It was the perfect hangout for teens and young adults (who were immortalized in Mallrats).

But Xers soon changed the mall scene. This strapped-for-cash generation helped popularize "category killers" and was the first to adopt online shopping. Millennial teens who arrived in the late 1990s began to show less interest in malls in part because their parents deemed malls too dangerous. According to Monitoring the Future, an ongoing study of young people, the share of 17-year-olds who "never" visit the mall or visit only "a few times a year" jumped from 19% in 2003 to 29% in 2009.

So where does the mall go from here?

The mall will remain a unique place for people to meet and socialize face to face. But as lifestyle centers become more popular and the wealthier Silent and Boomer generations age, poorer and technology-friendly Gen Xers and Millennials will be less interested in these retail graveyards.

Could there be a fit here for Millennials in the form of something more family-friendly and community-oriented? Perhaps. If malls hope to survive and to defy the gleefully gloomy predictions of the new urbanists, they had better find that fit.

Neil Howe, economist and historian, is president of LifeCourse Associates and Saeculum Research.

This is good new for the CBD, potentially bad news for the Westfield group. Must admit, I haven't been to Tea Tree Plaza or Marion for about 4+ years. I grew up in the NE suburbs and as a kid, would have 'hang out' at Tea Tree Plaza about 2-3 times a week in 1990s. Even when we used to visit my Nanna in school holidays, we would drag her down the street to Arndale SC. If there is one shopping centre that could go the way of a dead-mall soon, Arndale would have to be it

[Waewick]

This is all a bit off topic, but I went to Marion SC on the weekend and oh what a debacle.

They need paid parking asap, you spend more time looking for a park as you do shopping, then the bulk of the stores have nearly no floor stock and what is there, is crap.

The Mall, for all its critics, is still the place to go IMO (I'm told by the fairer gender Burnside still wins) if only that you know exactly what you are doing if you need to drive there.

[dsriggs]

Can't really compare the retail scene in America to the one here, tbh. Shopping centres here aren't showing any signs of collapsing any time soon.

[The Scooter Guy]

Can't really compare the retail scene in America to the one here, tbh. Shopping centres here aren't showing any signs of collapsing any time soon.

But what about the one at Windsor Gardens where Bunnings (formerly Lloyd's) is still trading?