Queen Street Mall one of priciest retail spaces in Asia Pacific

Brisbane was one of three Australian shopping strips listed in the top 10. Sydney’s Pitt Street Mall came in at number three, costing $13,900 per square metre a year, while Melbourne’s Bourke Street was number five at a cost of $6949.

Brisbane climbed a place compared with 2017, where it came in at number nine, while Sydney and Melbourne were unchanged.

Loading

Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay topped the Asia-Pacific region – and the world – at $38,267 per square metre a year for 2018.

The report follows announcements in August that Brisbane would welcome a host of new high-end stand-alone retailers to the Queen Street shopping plaza, including Camilla, Dior, Aje and Scanlan and Theodore.

The shopping strip receives more than 26 million visitors a year.

This year’s report noted Australia’s retail challenges as online shopping became increasingly popular, placing greater pressure on bricks-and-mortar stores.

Landlords across Australia were offering more incentives to keep occupiers in place, such as rent-free periods or allowing retailers to use pop-up retail spaces to “try before you buy”.

“There are various examples in CBD locations where multiple smaller units have been consolidated into a larger flagship store, in order to drive sales and improve staff efficiency,” the report notes of Australia’s main shopping strips.

“A number of key locations are under development and currently seeking large-scale flagship tenants, which is providing stiff competition for key shopping malls which do not offer the street/brand exposure of a flagship location.”

Australian retail spaces that are particularly successful include health and wellness retailers such as gyms and and fitness spaces.

Over the 30 years the report has studied prime retail space, retail power has shifted from the US and Europe to the Asia-Pacific region.

In 1988, the most expensive retail space was New York’s East 57th street at a price of $US457 per year per square foot.