About one-third of Racecourse Rd shops shut as roadworks, pandemic create trading disaster
It’s Brisbane’s original high street, and long regarded as one of the city’s classiest retail strips. But scores of its retail outlets are languishing vacant amid a perfect storm of road closures, COVID-19 shutdowns and expensive rents.
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A THIRD of shops in Brisbane’s original high street are empty as traders hit the wall amid a perfect storm of road closures, COVID-19 shutdowns and expensive rents.
Racecourse Rd at Ascot, which used to be the ultimate shopping destination for ladies of leisure and racegoers, is now riddled with “For Lease” signs after five years of construction work on nearby Kingsford Smith Drive drove customers away from the retail precinct.
About 35 shops, or a third of all retail outlets, are now empty with ANZ and Suncorp among the latest to exit the precinct. Some landlords are offering rental free periods to attract new tenants but traders continue to complain about unreasonably high rents.
Racecourse Rd newsagent Garry Grant said the situation was “s#*t house” with struggling retailers unable to survive years of construction work that had disrupted access to the shopping strip.
Mr Grant, who has owned the newsagent since 2005 and before that was a bank manager based in the street since 1978, said the rot started to set in when Eagle Farm racecourse was closed for redevelopment in 2016.
“That was followed by the start of the Kingsford Smith Drive project which has gone on and on and on,” said Mr Grant. “This was a good business when I bought it but I would have lost about 40 per cent of my business in the last five years. This morning I opened up at 5am and by 6.30 I had only had seven customers.”
Mr Grant said landlords needed to reduce rents to reasonable levels in order for traders to survive. Etre fashion boutique manager Kathy Bucceri said the Kingsford Smith Drive project had forced many traders to the wall. The project is expected to be completed within weeks but that will be too late for many businesses.
“We are talking about small businesses that have very thin margins,” said Ms Bucceri. “People were not happy to drive down Kingsford Smith Drive to Racecourse Rd with all the roadworks.”
She said over the years Racecourse Rd had lost many of the shops and eateries that made it a retail destination. “The ladies used to like to come here and have lunch and coffee and then spend the day shopping,” said Ms Bucceri. “We need a better mix of restaurants and shops so we can compete against placed like James St. This place used to full of people, with the Hamilton Hotel pumping and lot of good restaurants.”
She said the closure of the ANZ bank meant a loss of foot traffic past her fashion boutique, which has been located on Racecourse Rd for about 20 years. “A lot of the old Ascot money would attend the branch,” she said.
Other traders said the closure of the ANZ branch meant the precinct has lost an anchor tenant. “The place is just dead,” said one trader said.
Other traders have called on the Brisbane City Council to upgrade the appearance of the street, perhaps with more extensive tree planting and landscaping.
Other Racecourse Rd businesses were more upbeat about the future. Ian Harrison, owner of Harrisons Menswear, said trade was slowly recovering and some shops were being re-leased.
“Things are turning around and the completion of Kingsford Smith Drive will help as we get about about a third of our customers from the western suburbs,” said Mr Harrison.
Petrichor & Co cafe, owner David Ariza said customers were coming back to the road with the completion of the roadworks and the end of lockdown restrictions.