Brisbane’s older suburban shopping centres, like Brookside, Toombul and Strathpine, have become white elephants and will eventually be repurposed as medium density apartments, QUT retail expert Dr Gary Mortimer says.
He said the slow death of these once great centres, which were rapidly losing anchor tenants like Myer and David Jones, represented opportunities for apartment developers.
“These centres will eventually have to downsize and turn their empty spaces into apartments,” Dr Mortimer said.
“Most of these centres sit on great real estate, close to good schools, rail and main roads. Most have bus transit terminals, vital for medium density living.
“With both Myer and David Jones reassessing their current fleet, and closing under-performing suburban stores to invest in their CBD businesses, centre managers aren’t sleeping too well at night.”
Dr Mortimer said shoppers were turning to ‘category killers’ and international fast fashion retailers like H&M, Uniqlo and Zara.
“Department stores are losing their relevance and will continue to exit centres all around Australia,” he said.
“We only have to look at Hurstville and Top Ryde in Sydney, Tuggeranong in the ACT and Forest Hill in Melbourne which depended on anchor tenants like Myer and David Jones, big drawcards in the 60s and 70s.
“Once we shopped at department stores for everything from furniture and whitegoods, to stationery, school shoes and dress fabric.
“But today we’d rather go to mega specialists such as Harvey Norman, Ikea, A-mart and Spotlight for furniture, bedding and consumer electronics.
“Target and Kmart’s reinvigorated fashion ranges are also putting pressure on Myer and David Jones.”
Dr Mortimer said centre managers remained upbeat about possibly breaking up vacant retail spaces, and generating greater revenues for multiple tenants.
“But there is the inherent risk of sales cannibalisation - simply replicating a retail offer multiple times across a centre only serves to reduce the entire ‘slice of the pie’ for incumbent tenants,” he said.
“Toombul, for example, is far too big for the market it serves. In their desire to fill space, shoppers are now presented with ever changing casual tenants, multiple nail salons or simply boarded up store fronts.”
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