1 August 2011

The Bunyip* is good for you! QIC finds research conducive to its cause.

| johnboy
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Canberra Centre

The Canberra Times is giving credence to research undertaken for QIC that the Canberra Centre is actually good for retailers outside of the belly of the beast.

Rival traders have long claimed QIC has bought shops in Garema Place and sucked the life out of City East with its multi-levels of car parking and enclosed retailing.

But the impact statement supporting QIC’s latest bid to add more than $500 million worth of development to the mall says an under-supply of homewares and full-line supermarkets, average quality merchandising and out-dated shopfronts in City East detract from the city’s commercial heart.

Apparently they’re promising either a Harvey Norman or an Ikea if they get the green light.

* Bunyip, The Monster That Ate Canberra.

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It’d be nice for competition sake that it was someone new, being in the heart of canberra you’d hope that they spend money on design rather than just economic value.

Most of The Canberra Centre is dark and closed in. Its about time we had something that was iconic to Canberra. Would be awesome if they (the powers that be) put it upto public vote on the final design. Short of that clear a bigger garema place so that events like the multicultural festival have more room and then they can happen more often.

The single largest retail lessor in Canberra is releasing a report which describes our city as being _totally dependent on their presence_…
“… it is doubtful whether the city, without the customers brought into the city by the Canberra Centre, would be capable of surviving as a genuine retail complex…”

This, at a time when retail rentals in Sydney are second only to New York in price per metre and Brisbane and Melbourne are within top-ten cities internationally,

So, since we’ve almost been backed into a corner, why not open up competition and opt for a more stable solution than “all eggs will go in the one basket”, or see it as something of an un-sustainable bubble, and investigate alternatives?
That said, I have a pretty fair idea of what happens when developers donate a truckload of cash through the regional offices of the Labor Party.

(As an aside, are your offices on the fifth floor of the King O’Malley’s building, north-west corner? Its the only place I can think of that satisfies both the view in the above photo and the screwdriver…)

I like the idea of an IKEA or a Harvey Norman in the city. I’d rather IKEA, actually, as there are already 2 HNs in Canberra.

I’m not sure about having QIC develop the area on Cooyong st. I know they already own the carpark, but I hate monopolies and I’d honestly prefer a different development group getting in there.

There is a shortage of “homewares” stores in Canberra. Really?

Harvey Norman sucks. Only people who cannot afford to pay upfront go there.

An Ikea however would make people flock to Civic in significant numbers. And not just Canberrans, but also shoppers from rural areas.

A Harvey Norman it is, then.

the impact statement supporting QIC’s latest bid to add more than $500 million worth of development to the mall says an under-supply of homewares and full-line supermarkets, average quality merchandising and out-dated shopfronts in City East detract from the city’s commercial heart

Those out-dated shopfronts do it for me. I have to go to the Canberra Centre just for the look…

Plan B for the government, just turn Civic over to QIC, think of all the construction jobs that will create.

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