HyperDome Going Down Drain?

Postalgeek said :

How many useless fashion/clothing shops does Canberra need? Seems to me that developers have way over-catered for the ACT, so of course they’re going to whinge that Canberra needs to grow to fill their shops. In the meantime tech-savvy Canberra is discovering bargains online…

The problem with Canberra is it doesn’t have any good fashion/clothing shops.

After reading this the other day I mentioned this to a shop owner in another complex. He said not long ago he had a call from Hyperdome Management looking for business to move to the Hyperdome.
Must be getting desperite.

As a long term shopper at the Hyperdome, i’m saddened by the slow demise of the centre.

yes, the Hyperdome has issues – not small ones either.

1. it’s easy to blame management but they are only following the owners instructions.
ie: Centro and Leda with Colonial as the managerial team. how hard would it be having 2 bosses. no, i’m not part of management

2. promotions – the current promotional activity leaves alot to be desired. bring back the BIG promos, eg: car giveaway – spend $50 at any retailer to go into the draw. not book, scarf, shopping bag giveaways which have been the recent promos. promos are also the biggest gripe of many retailers. why should they have to promote their store with a sale (losing more $) when they have already contributed tens of thousands of dollars (collectively) as per their lease arrangements

3.clean up the place – have you seen the toilet facilities lately? in an effort to save money, a new cleaning contractor had been put in place. however, the bathrooms reek! cutting costs has certainly back fired. sure, the fittings are overdue to be upgraded but that NO EXCUSE for being filthy. the floors should be mopped at least every hour with hot water and disinfectant, vanities wiped and a general tidy. i hope the retail manager is reading this – she is in a position to do something about it.

4. vacancies – there are a lot of rumors about who is going and who is staying. Myer will be going 2011ish. so i surely hope there are plans for another retailer or two to take up all that space. the smaller independant retailers are suffering due to all the closures. not to mention all the holdover leases (when your lease runs out but you still trade month to month based on your old lease) or casual leases (because the retailer dosen’t feel justified signing a lease with so much uncertainty)

so, you may ask: why does this person still shop at the Hyperdome?

1. the majority of the smaller individual retailers are very down to earth and friendly
2. the Hyperdome employs alot of people – wher would they work if the place closed down?
3. even though sales are down, the Hyperdome generates income for the ACT ecomony
4. it’s the largest, shopping precinct in the Tuggeranong Valley and it still provides a general shopping diversity

Don’t stop going to the Hyperdome. in fact support the Hyperdome – you might just pull it back from the brink

My main beef with the Tuggeranong Hyperdome is that it doesn’t have a JB Hi-Fi or anything similar – only Sanity, blegh.

I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

Woden seems to be the only centre thriving. The change in management from centro to colonial hasn’t done much for the stem of closures at tuggeranong, the canberra centre also has a lot of empty shops, particularly on the ground floor, prouds is gone and the chemist next door is moving, also seems what might be a bigger new shop in its place. I don’t think there has been any significant shift of shops to dfo/brand depot as they are both half empty too. Retailers don’t seem to like canberra at the moment..

Does anyone have any data on population changes in Tuggers? Many of the older areas were established over 30 years ago, so what was ‘nappy valley’ is now likely to be full of empty nests. The remaining occupants are likely to be older and spending less- their declining demand for many goods and services could be making life tough for the Hyperdome. On the other hand, the populations in the younger suburbs at the southern end of Tuggers still seem to be in the grip of a breeding frenzy, so their child-driven expenditures could be compensating for any expenditure decline elsewhere.

How many useless fashion/clothing shops does Canberra need? Seems to me that developers have way over-catered for the ACT, so of course they’re going to whinge that Canberra needs to grow to fill their shops. In the meantime tech-savvy Canberra is discovering bargains online…

Grail said :

My opinion is that the death of retailers at Tuggers is a mixture of Mr Snow’s “let’s kill Canberra’s economy” business park out at the airport, mall management at Tuggers being too hungry for money and too slow to provide service, and people simply not spending as much money on fripperies like new jewellery and butter keepers (because they’ve already spent their spending money on “bargains” out at DFO/Brand Depot/Bunnings).

I don’t really agree with that. DFO is very close to Riverside Plaza which is about to have a huge expansion and is going very strong. They will be the first in NSW to have Westfarmers new design for Target stores.
Woden, Civic and Belco all look pretty strong despite DFO and BD opening. Woden too is about to have a huge expansion.
Furthermore, Centrelink opened their new offices in Tuggeranong bringing at least 4000 new people into the area five days a week, a nice increase in market size for the Hyperdome.
You are right though about the Hyperdome being too hungry for money, though I think the same can be said for QIC at the Canberra Centre too.

georgesgenitals said :

Lot’s of the bargain shopping that used to exist at Tuggers (and also at Belco) is moving out to Brand Depot and DFO. There are only so many shops a city can support.

Let’s not feel too sad for the shopping centres and their tenants. Look what they’ve done to small businesses foolish enough to try to operate in other locations like local shops. The people who try to run successful businesses while paying exorbitant shopping centre rents certainly don’t seem too interested in the people their landlord has driven into the ground. BD and DFO just give them a taste of what they dish out.