It’s no coincidence that Australia’s two oldest shopping centres are two of the three top trading retail properties in the land.
Melbourne’s Chadstone shopping centre will chalk up 50 years trading in October of this year.
The Melbourne shopping icon opened on October 3, 1960, as part of an ambitious strategy by The Myer Emporium to take its department stores into expanding suburban catchments.
For most of its history, Chadstone has been the benchmark for the shopping centre industry in Australia and it is celebrating its 50th year as the nation’s top centre in floorspace and sales.
Chadstone and Chermside shopping centre, the Brisbane northern suburbs centre that is now part of the Westfield property portfolio, both opened in 1960 as the first of the American-style shopping malls in Australia.
Both were opened by the Myer Emporium, although Chermside was a redevelopment of a May 1957 project by Allan & Stark of a department store and small arcade of 12 shops.
The two landmark centres have prospered over five decades and are today the two largest centres in terms of retail floorspace and two of the top three for sales after recent extensions.
Chadstone was the first shopping centre in Australia to top the $1 billion mark in annual sales in December 2007.
The feat followed an extension and upgrade to the complex that was part of a staged $280 million redevelopment.
Chadstone’s sales slipped back to $957 million in 2008 while the redevelopment works continued but with the completion of the upgrade late last year, sales had bounced back to more than $1 billion for 2009.
The Chadstone redevelopment increased the centre’s retail floorspace to 170,000sqm.
A substantial upgrade of the Westfield Chermside centre that increased retail floorspace by around 20,000sqm to 144,363sqm made the Brisbane landmark the second biggest complex in Australia.
The increase in floorspace and additional tenants recruited to the centre saw Chermside’s annual sales hit $801 million in 2009, up from $706 million 18 months earlier.
On the Top 20 list for shopping centre sales, Chermside leapfrogged Warringah Mall in Sydney and both Westfield Southland and Highpoint in Melbourne in 2009.
The centre that split Chadstone and Chermside in sales generation was Westfield Bondi Junction, which is the first Westfield centre in Australia to top $1 billion in sales.
Bondi Junction’s feat in 2009 is impressive as the centre has added around $100 million in sales in the past 18 months without any additional floorspace or upgrade.
Bondi Junction is only the eighth largest centre in the nation at 127,488sqm but it has the second highest number of retail tenancies with 508, compared to Chadstone with the most at 530, Westfield Parramatta with 492 and Chermside with 408.
Just as Chadstone under the ownership of the Gandel Group and Colonial First State has been an innovator in new retail concepts within the mall environment, most recently with a high street offer and luxury goods precinct, Bondi Junction has been an innovation testbed for Wesfield since it opened in 2004.
Bondi Junction has used technology to enhance customer service with valet parking and concierge bag delivery to a shopper’s car and installed the first digital spectacular screen for large format digital advertising.
However, the centre’s sales increases have largely been driven by a remix of tenancies, effective marketing and possibly the attraction of some Sydney city shoppers avoiding the disruption of CBD redevelopment works.
While Chadstone would be expected to increase its sales further this year, Bondi Junction could possibly do well to maintain or just marginally improve on its turnover.
There is currently around $70 million difference in annual sales between Chadstone and Bondi Junction and then $200 million back to the third biggest revenue generator, Chermside on $801 million.
In the Top 20 centres by sales turnover, Westfield has 12 shopping centres, including three in the top five rankings, Bondi Junction, Chermside and Southland with $788.4 million in sales.
The other Westfield centres in the Top 20 are Marion ($766 million), Doncaster ($728 million), Miranda ($723 million), Parramatta ($718 million), Carindale ($700 million) and Fountain Gate ($700 million), Hornsby, Penrith and Garden City.
AMP Capital has four in the Top 20, Warringah Mall ($771 million), Knox City ($738 million), Macquarie Centre and Garden City Booragoon, while GPT has two, Highpoint ($784 million) and Erina Fair. QIC has Castle Towers while Chadstone is the only CFS/Gandel complex ranked in the Top 20 on sales.