Toowoomba Regional Council to discontinue Creative CBD program due to ‘challenges’ with pilot

Despite attracting more than 1500 people to the CBD through a number of events, an innovative project to fill vacant shopfronts with creative businesses has been canned.

Artists in their studio space, Kyle Jenkins (left), David Usher and Peta Berghofer. Opening of the First Creative CBD Toowoomba Start Up partnership Alexandra Lawson Gallery (ALG) and Waltons.

A tightening of the Toowoomba CBD vacancy rate and unwilling or uncontactable landlords were some of the reasons behind the discontinuation of an innovative creative business program trial.

The Toowoomba Regional Council on Wednesday voted to end the Creative CBD pilot program, after five tenancies were filled by six businesses.

The project, which was launched last year by the council in partnership with Renew Australia, gave small creative start-ups the opportunity to enter into short-term licenses with landlords to grow their businesses and fill vacant shopfronts in the CBD.

Some of the successful applicants were the Alexandra Lawson Gallery at Walton Stores and Rare Squid Creative on Margaret Street.

But principal economic development officer Shamus Garmany said the program encountered several “challenges” to its continuation, namely around the availability and quality of vacant shopfronts.

“First and foremost, the main struggle has been finding buildings to put participants in,” he told councillors at the committee meeting.

“That comes from a few reasons, a number of the CBD vacancies may say they’re for lease, but they’re in fact going through the leasing process.

“Another issue we didn’t a number of the properties had a number of structural issues, and those who were contacted weren’t of the mind to improve those properties until they had long-term paid tenants.

“Plenty were unable to be contacted or just didn’t want to be involved.”

Mr Garmany said while the program resulted in 44 events being held, attracting more than 1500 people to the CBD, it was hard to quantify how much it had improved city centre activation.

“What we weren’t able to do is measure the broader activation of the street,” he said.

“What we found from this is the cost to run this to council and because of the work involved, we did have to engage someone to manage the process for us — we can’t do that internally.

“It is a reasonably expensive way to activate the CBD, if that was our intention.

“We don’t need to provide at this point any mechanisms to support building owners because they are, through natural causes, filling themselves.”

Councillor Rebecca Vonhoff said the program was “admirable”, encouraging the council to consider new ways to support creative industry start-ups and businesses.

“The intent of why this was done was reasonable and admirable, we want to grow the creative economy and reduce CBD vacancies,” she said.

“They hold true today just as much as when this was first considered.”

Businesses still occupying shopfronts will be allowed to remain in place until June 2022 as part of the trial, provided the landlord doesn’t find a permanent tenant.

Originally published as Toowoomba Regional Council to discontinue Creative CBD program due to ‘challenges’ with pilot