Mini Guns retail malls defy market jitters
The Mini Guns retail shopping centres, mainly located in suburban strips, have defied market jitters with steady sales as people stay close to home due to pandemic lockdowns.
In the latest survey by industry bible Shopping Centre News, the St Ives Shopping Centre on Sydney’s north shore maintained its No. 1 spot with a moving average turnover (MAT), an industry measure of sales, of $233.58 million – down just 3.2 per cent on last year.
The survey covered 133 centres and, in terms of MAT per sq m, Charter Hall’s Pacific Square in Maroubra, in Sydney’s south, took the honours recording $18,805 MAT per sq m as a result of a major remix and the introduction of some specialist food retailers.
Mini Guns malls are defined as shopping centres across Australia ranging in size from 6000 square metres to 20,000 sq m.
The larger ones are usually anchored by a full-size supermarket, plus a discount department store such as Kmart with about 80 specialty shops completing the retail offering.
Michael Lloyd, SCN’s publisher, said a couple of decades ago, these centres were the province of
private investors; smaller, local developers who secured an anchor tenant and tacked on
a component of specialty shops.
“But these days they’re owned and managed by the big players, who’ve brought in sophisticated management, leasing and marketing, resulting in their performance going through the roof,” Mr Lloyd said.
Owners and managers of these malls include Stockland, Mirvac, Charter Hall, Lendlease, Vicinity Centres, Dexus, AMP Capital, QICGRE and SCA Property Group, as well as the retail management arms of Colliers International, Knight Frank, CBRE and JLL.
Mr Lloyd said, in general terms, about 50 per cent of the surveyed centres showed improved performance on last year with 50 per cent showing declines.
“But the declines were mostly less than the 5 per cent mark and that showed the strength of the sector in such troubled times,” he said.
Carolyn Cummins is Commercial Property Editor for The Sydney Morning Herald.
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Source: Thanks smh.com