Would you set up shop here if you didn’t have to pay? Councillor wants to extend Renew Adelaide scheme

AN Adelaide councillor is pushing for start-up businesses to get free rent to help breathe life back into fading shopping strips. He has two locations in mind.

Free rent would be offered to start-up businesses on Melbourne St under a plan being promoted by a local coucnillor. Picture: Keryn Stevens

• One in five shops along Melbourne St, North Adelaide, vacant
• Melbourne St shops call on Adelaide City Council to help attract more shoppers
• How Adelaide’s iconic O’connell St is becoming a ghost town

AN Adelaide City councillor is pushing to provide free rent for start-up businesses in North Adelaide in a bid to breathe life back into quiet shopping strips.

Councillor Phil Martin plans to meet with members of the North Adelaide Precinct Association to discuss expanding the city’s successful Renew Adelaide program on Melbourne St and O’Connell St.

Renew Adelaide is a not-for-profit government funded organisation which works with landlords to provide 30-day rent free leases to businesses looking to set up shop.

If businesses are successful, then can negotiate becoming fulltime tenants.

Cr Martin’s push comes as more than one in five shops along Melbourne St are vacant, or 17 out of 88 tenancies.

Many more are up for lease.

The figures are in contrast to nearby O’Connell St, where nine out of the 95 shops along the strip are empty.

Cr Martin said the move would promote businesses to set up shop.

“One of the greatest strengths of Renew Adelaide is it has been able to find new and innovative businesses that attract new interest from shoppers,” Cr Martin said.

“Renew Adelaide has found both retail and hospitality businesses that have been huge successes because it has been able to identify a niche.

“If we can bring just a little of that to Melbourne St and O’Connell St then I think North Adelaide will be all the better for it.”

Last year, Renew Adelaide helped 30 businesses start up in 20 empty properties across the CBD and Port Adelaide.

In that time, 56 new fulltime jobs were created in the city alone, including in Topham Mall and Regent Arcade.

Cr Martin blamed high rent and a decrease in foot traffic along Melbourne St for a downfall in trade.

“Melbourne St has clearly undergone substantial change over the last 20 years,” he said.

“Retail activity has declined and there seems to be a greater number of medical and professional businesses opening in the street.

“It would be my intention to ask the council to do whatever we can, including providing financial assistance, to Renew Adelaide in order to revitalise Melbourne St.”

A report released by Adelaide City Council in March found that Melbourne St had failed to capitalise on more activity in the CBD, including nearby Adelaide Oval, over recent years.

North Adelaide Precinct Association president David Johnson supported the move.

“It has always been difficult to retain businesses in this area, but anything that can help fill these empty buildings would be great,” Mr Johnson said.

Renew Adelaide chief executive Tim Boundy said North Adelaide was an ideal location for businesses to start up but it would need support from the council, landlords and tenants.

“With a service as unique as Renew Adelaide’s, the huge amount of collaboration that occurs to make even one project possible can be overlooked,” Mr Boundy said.

“We would need property owners to want to work with the businesses we bring under the Renew model.”

Di Gianni Hair owner Tony Primaro, whose business is on Melbourne St, welcomed any future expansion.

“Something like this program is what Melbourne St is missing,” Mr Primaro said.

“There isn’t enough shops to attract people who are driving past at the moment.”