Qld’s smaller neighbourhood shopping centres are outgunning their bigger rivals: new survey

Thirty-three of Queensland’s smaller shopping centres have made this year’s list of top performing retail ‘Mini Guns’, many of them punching well above the bigger department store-anchored malls.

Queensland’s smaller convenience-based shopping centres are now the domain of major players and showing their power.

CONVENIENCE is king and Queensland’s smaller neighbourhood shopping centres are punching well above even their big gun rivals.

Thirty-three Queensland shopping centres with a gross lettable area of 6000sq m to 20,000sq m have made the top 144 in the Shopping Centre News (SCN) 2019 Mini Guns survey.

Stockland Caloundra with an annual turnover of $137 million was the top Queensland Mini Gun followed by Gympie Central ($133.07 million) and Gasworks Plaza ($125.83 million).

The survey found that Gasworks also had the state’s highest moving annual turnover per square metre of $16,614/sq m followed by Kenmore Plaza ($15,557/sq m), both making the national top 10 and up more than 3 per cent on the previous year.

Gasworks Plaza was Queensland’s top ‘Mini Gun’ with the highest annual turnover per square metre.

“This year, Queensland is well represented again in the Mini Guns report which is reflective of the population growth of the Sunshine State,” said SCN publisher Michael Lloyd.

“Many landlords and property owners are investing in convenience-based assets and building new shopping centres in large projects such as Stockland Baringa.

“The convenience that neighbourhood centres deliver as well as their role in their local communities is central to the shopping centre landscape in a state as large as Queensland.”

Overall, there were 62 shopping centres in the Mini Guns category across Australia that recorded a turnover of $10,000/sq m or more.

By comparison, only five centres in the Big Guns category — retail assets usually anchored by large department stores, with a gross lettable area of more than 50,000sq m — achieved that level.

Convenience-based shopping centres are central to Queensland’s retail landscape.

SCN managing editor Leanne Liu said for years Mini Gun centres were shunned as unimportant, the province of private investors, local businessmen and provincial real estate developers.

“Today, Mini Gun centres are the province of the heavyweights such as Charter Hall, Vicinity Centres, Stockland, ISPT, SCA Property Group, Lendlease, Mirvac, AMP, all of which have brought in top management and development skills to the sector,” she said.

TOP 10 QUEENSLAND ‘MINI GUNS’ (based on moving annual turnover)

1. Stockland Caloundra ($137 million)

2. Gympie Central ($133.07 million)

3. Gasworks Plaza ($125.83 million)

4. Arana Hills Plaza ($123.47 million)

5. Beenleigh Marketplace ($115.9 million)

6. Marketplace Warner ($109.09 million)

7. Yeppoon Central ($104.99 million)

8. Bribie Island Shopping Centre ($102.67 million)

9. Kingaroy Shoppingworld ($98.4 million)

10. Kenmore Village ($94.23 million)

* Moving annual turnover (MAT) is the sales figure for a twelve-month period calculated on a monthly rolling basis.