Struggling Brisbane high street gets a lifeline

A passionate group of traders on a struggling southside high street have been promised an initiative worth tens of thousands of dollars to help reinvigorate their beloved retail strip as part of the Brisbane City Council election campaign.

Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner and Cr Krista Adams (centre) with the Mount Gravatt Main Street Committee Yvonne Romano, David Roberts, Michael Sunderland, Mark Williams, Louise Papas, and Michael Dong. Picture: Ellen-Maree Elliot

A STRUGGLING high street on Brisbane’s southside dotted with empty shops but galvanised by passionate business owners has been thrown a $30,000 lifeline as an election promise.

Mt Gravatt Central is a strip shopping precinct that runs along Logan Rd on the border between Mt Gravatt and Mt Gravatt East and has been doing it tough for years.

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LNP Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner and Cr Krista Adams (Holland Park) promised a $30,000 local business partnership with the Mt Gravatt Main Street Committee on Monday.

Cr Adams said under the partnership, the council would work with the committee on a plan to make the shopping area more attractive to potential customers.

Ideas could include beautifying the area, lighting trees and launching community events, while the council would provide support and analysis of the area to inform decision making.

Mt Gravatt Central on Logan Rd. Photo: Kristy Muir

Cr Adams said the neighbourhood was on the cusp of “a really big boom” as more apartments were built under the Mt Gravatt Corridor Neighbourhood Plan.

“So the more feet we get on the streets, we need to encourage those residents to come down here,” she said.

“We get this place looking great, everybody invigorated and that will encourage people to come down.”

Cr Schrinner said Mount Gravatt Central was where his parents shopped when he was a child “before Garden City got massive and before Carindale even existed” and put pressure on the street.

“We want to work to activate (this precinct) and get one-of-a-kind businesses here,” he said.

“(The traders are) passionate about revitalising this area, we all see the potential for it to be the bustling hub it was when I was a child and used to come here — that’s the aim.”

Mt Gravatt Central on Logan Rd. Photo: Kristy Muir

Mark Williams is an architect who grew up in the area — his business has been in Mt Gravatt Central since 1994.

“It definitely needs help,” he said.

“I think there’s a future for strip shopping, it’s about trying to find the right mix.”

He said the partnership with council was “definitely a good thing” and the information the council could help them learn about their customers would be “powerful” for decision making.

He said busy Logan Road meant the streetscape was noisy and could feel uninviting and unsafe but there was potential — and space — to create laneways and arcades behind the facades.

Mr Williams said the shopping strip needed to foster loyal customers through online tools like social media, and out-of-date storefronts should be spruced up and all should be clearly numbered.

Another key thing was educating the community that there was, actually, enough parking while light installations were also welcome.

“We’re trying to make something look alive,” he said.

Mt Gravatt Central on Logan Rd. Photo: Kristy Muir

Yvonne Ramona is the owner of Ramona Chambers, which her father first built in the 1950s, and she said it was difficult to attract tenants to the area.

She said the street had struggled particularly over the past five or six years and she hoped the initiative would help with ideas to “help people come back to the centre”.

“My most important thing is to encourage people to come back to Mt Gravatt Central,” she said.

Cr Schrinner said the partnership could also help the area secure upgrades under the Village Precinct projects, a place in the recently launched pop-up shop scheme, or tree lighting.

“Oh for sure, it does … things like that are examples of where (traders) put forward an idea through a partnership like this then we’ll consider it very favourably,” he said.