Immediate rate relief needed to help save King William Rd, the street’s biggest landlord say
The biggest landlord on King William Rd is pleading with Unley Council to go back to the drawing board to find more car parking to save the street.
- Landlord slams Unley Council
- Traders positive about future of road after upgrade
- King William Rd shutdown begins
- First closure on King William Rd
Unley Council must find new car parks to stop a mounting disaster on King William Rd that could leave the street a wasteland once works are finished, the strips biggest landlord says.
Con Angelopoulos, from the Duke Group that owns 48 tenancies on the major shopping precinct, says the roadworks are a disaster but if more carparking isn’t included the street will never recover once works are finished.
“Everyone knows carparking is critical on this road,” Mr Angelopoulos exclusively told The Advertiser.
“It’s been the issue for years but with this project we are going to lose up to a further 40 car park spaces.
“The project will create a beautiful shopping precinct for the community but there will be limited carparking available for shoppers to park.”
“They (Unley) have not allocated any budget to create additional car parking or to purchase additional land to create carparking.”
“They should not have started the project until there was a resolution of the car parking.
“They put the cart before the horse.”
He added the council need to offer urgent rate relief and a cash injection to help existing businesses survive the roadworks period.
Mr Angelopoluous, who runs the business with his father Chris, said they had received an “overwhelming adverse response” from tenants about their financial situation many who are “beside themselves” because they have “virtually no customers.”
“An immediate cash injection through a waiver of the rates is the only way out,” he added.
“Identify those traders who are struggling most and act immediately.
‘Otherwise there’ll be far more empty shops and once they are vacant, and without on street parking, it’s impossible to get them back.”
He said not even the offer of sustainable rent reduction has been sufficient to hold on to some of his long term tenants.
The Advertiser is aware two Australia-wide businesses have terminated leases despite an offer of free rent during the Hyde Park road closure for the $15.5m council upgrade.
Last month Chris Angelopoulos slammed the council saying it had “destroyed the street” and “destroyed the businesses”.
He rejected Council’s assistance package for traders that includes free fridge magnets, free door mats, a cleaning windows program and a time extension to pay rates as “far too little and too late”.
The Advertiser has seen documentation the Duke company offered many of their retail tenancies substantial reductions in rent to keep them going until Christmas.
‘We feel like we as property owners we are carrying this project financially and keeping the King William shopping precinct alive,” Con Angelopoulos added.
He said Norwood and Glenelg councils had addressed the carparking issues prior to commencing their redevelopments.
The Advertiser understands Unley attempted to purchase a block of units in the vicinity on Wattle Street that would be demolished for additional carparking but the price to buy exceeded its market valuation.
Council attempts to negotiate with an overseas owner to remove fencing to create continuous car park space at the back of properties on the western road side is also understood to have ended in failure.
Unley Mayor Michael Hewitson said Unley was yet to resolve the issues with carparking but had moved to improve the situation.
“We haven’t solved the parking issue but we’re dealing with it … and if the landlords all came on board we could kill it,” he said.
“On the street we’ve taken away 24 parks but we’ve added in far more than that on the surrounding streets.
“And at our expense we have offered to provide smart parking in the area that could create an 200 additional off road car parks.”
He said the council discussed offering landlord’s free rates for the nine months of the road upgrade but there was “zero support” for the proposal.
“We looked at what we could do to help the traders and giving free rate relief to the landlords was no guarantee that would happen,” Mr Hewitson said.
“We have invigorated Goodwood Rd and we wish to do the same with King William Rd to make it the most loved place to visit in Adelaide.
“The landlords at no cost to them are getting a $12 million rebuild which will improve their capital gains — they win all ways.”
Mr Hewitson said King William Rd landlords had actually seen a reduction in rates for the current financial year compared to the rest of the City of Unley.
“The reason the rates have dropped is that value of the shops have dropped,” he said.
“What we had was a street in slow and genteel and long term decline … in an era where retail shops are under pressure from online business.
“The landlords are getting fantastic help from council at no cost to themselves.”
King William Rd project manager Rod Hook said council would be “around the mark” in re-opening the road on schedule next Monday, August 6, while works continue.
“I was hoping we would come in early but the weather has ended that possibility,” Mr Hook said.
“We’re over half way and won’t be too far off on our timeline that we’ve published.
“We haven’t started the work across Arthur St as yet — and might have to revisit that at some stage.”