Metronet is offering two years of free rent to try and lure small businesses into nine train stations across the city.
The generous offer includes the sized-up Bayswater station, where the 10 shopfronts situated under the elevated station have been empty since it’s opening more than a year ago.
The shopfronts at Bayswater Station have been empty since its opening more than a year ago.Credit: Metronet
The offer is embedded in Metronet’s commercial leasing strategy, but it has only recently begun promoting it on its website in March and in a push of Transport Minister Rita Saffioti and Metronet’s own Facebook pages this week.
The offers provide a carrot for businesses to take over leases in existing shopfronts at Bayswater, Alkimos, Midland and Yanchep, as well as new stations on the new Armadale line and Thornlie to Cockburn link.
The free rent period is contingent on businesses signing up for a five-year lease.
Bayswater residents have expressed frustration on social media over the empty shopfronts underneath the elevated train station.
In June 2024, Metronet announced that 10 tenancies were available and that 15 people had submitted expressions of interest.
By March, none of those had eventuated into a business, but seven tenancies have now been leased.
These new businesses include a GP clinic, an accountant, café, burger shop and Vietnamese restaurant.
Future Bayswater chair Paul Shanahan has been a fervent backer of the new Bayswater Station and said it was a puzzle as to why it had taken so long to secure tenancies, but theorised it may have been a lack of promotion of the free rent offer.
“We’ve been aware there’d been a rent-free tenancy policy for quite a while now, but one of the things that we noticed, it did seem like there was some concerns about promotion efforts,” he said.
Opposition leader Basil Zempilas said the forgone rent added yet another cost to the $14 billion running tally of Metronet.
“I’m sure that free rent was not something that they factored when they did their modelling,” he said.
Zempilas also criticised the move in that it was unfair to businesses that had set up shop near the near Metronet stations.
“For those nearby businesses and residents who are probably in shopping centres or on strips and are paying rent and then to see new businesses open up in their area and get a significantly discounted period, they would have a right to express the view that’s not fair to us,” he said.
A Metronet spokeswoman said recent promotions of the free rent offer had been extremely successful.
She said this was the first time the state had invested at this level in transforming train stations and the areas around them.
“Incentivising tenancy spaces aims to bring colour and life to station precincts and activate stations,” she said.
The spokeswoman said the last three tenancies at Bayswater were “well-progressed” with prospective tenants and that fit out works had begun on the seven leased shops.
She said the four commercial tenancies on the Ellenbrook Line were leased and fit out is in progress while negotiations on the two tenancies on the Yanchep line were well progressed.
“Expressions of interest are currently open for stations nearing construction completion on the Armadale Line and Thornlie and Midland stations,” she said.
Metronet does not yet know what the impact the forgone rent will have on the Public Transport Authorities’ bottom line.