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Melbourne Central named Australia’s best performing shopping centre

Retail
Scott Rochfort
The GPT Group’s Melbourne Central has taken the mantle as Australia’s most productive retail centre, after topping the prestigious Shopping Centre News Big Guns list for turnover per square metre.

At this week’s annual SCN Big Guns event, which ranks 98 Australian shopping centres by annual turnover and sales per square metre, Melbourne Central was ranked number one in terms of moving annual turnover (MAT) by square metre at $14,763.

GPT’s Regional General Manager at Melbourne Central Leigh Dunn said: “Melbourne Central’s success is a result of the significant aesthetic reinvestment in the asset to the improve the customer experience and the ability to leverage this reinvestment to remix and introduce first to market retailers such as Kit Kat, Sephora, Innisfree, Rustica, Platypus, Milligram.”

The number one ranking for Melbourne Central comes as GPT expects to commence a 7,000 square metre retail and entertainment expansion in the centre in late 2019. The expansion will showcase the best of Melbourne’s laneway and high street culture and include dining, education, wellness offerings and retail markets.

In SCN’s Big Guns list for the Top 20 centres by sales per square metre, GPT had three centres. And in five centres the top 20 centres for specialty sales per square metre, which included Melbourne Central, Charlestown Square and Highpoint.

Meanwhile, GPT’s Highpoint Shopping Centre was ranked Australia’s sixth ranked centre with $1.02 billion of moving average turnover.

SCN publisher Michael Lloyd said the centres on the Big Guns list had performed remarkably well despite the fall in consumer confidence and challenging retail environment.

“It’s testimony to the professionalism and expertise of the shopping centre industry in the country. It’s undoubtedly the best in the world, a fact well recognised in shopping centre circles in Australia but seldom voiced in Australia,” he said.