Special investigation: The NT News walked the CBD’s streets and found almost 100 vacant shopfronts
ALMOST 100 shopfronts in the Darwin CBD are empty. The NT News walked all the city centre’s streets and found 95 vacant shopfronts. A further 121 CBD commercial spaces are available for lease online
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ALMOST 100 shopfronts in the Darwin CBD are empty.
The NT News walked all streets and arcades within the boundary of the CBD and found 95 vacant shopfronts — 41 were available for lease but the other 54 had no explanation for the closure or any signage.
A further 121 CBD commercial spaces are available for lease online.
The shocking reality comes after a report which showed small and medium businesses’ confidence in the NT has dived 21 points in the past three months – the worst in Australia.
On Cavenagh St, the Cavenagh House office building had totally empty floors with just a handful of businesses occupying the entire site according to the building directory.
While some of the city’s arcades such as Star Village Arcade are buzzing with people eating lunch or doing a bit of shopping, others such as the Voyage aren’t so fortunate.
People sat within the Voyage’s food court having their lunch break beside six empty stores without any notice of when they would be occupied.
The once iconic Victoria Arcade has a few businesses deep into the arcade but entering the alley it looked like an access lane with barriers on stairways and scuff marks on windows. Empty stores are scattered with debris.
The Mitchell Centre on the corner of Mitchell and Knuckey streets is a shadow of its former self with several vacant shopfronts.
EDITORIAL: Our CBD is in dire need of help
Real Estate Institute of the Northern Territory chief executive Quentin Kilian said the commercial property vacancy rate in Darwin was the highest of any capital city in the country. Currently 23 per cent of commercial properties in Darwin are empty.
He said the number of vacant shop fronts and office spaces had been a problem in the CBD for more than 12 months.
Mr Kilian said the government’s plan to tax building and land owners with vacant premises was “retrograde” and “nonsensical”.
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“Lowering rent is not going to attract more businesses here if there are no businesses here to attract,” he said. “Simply taxing people for not having tenants is purely illogical.”
He said new business needed to be encouraged to the Territory. “New business will create jobs and attract people which will fill residential space and then there will be new sources of tax revenue for the government,” he said.
He said the rate of residential vacancies was at a point that it could become concerning. The vacancy rate stands at 8.3 per cent.
He said Inpex could not be blamed for the dozens upon dozens of empty shop fronts.
“The government should have been making future decisions knowing that it was never a permanent workforce,” he said.
Property Council of Australia NT executive director Ruth Palmer said the Darwin CBD was the primary employment hub for the Top End but had suffered immensely as the Government had moved departments into the suburbs.
“Government take up 80 per cent of tenancy and once you lose a department, you lose a number of employees who would shop, work and play in the CBD,” she said.
“Those employees aren’t replaced. We unfortunately don’t have the large corporations that can fill an entire empty office space.”
Ms Palmer called the Vacant and Derelict Site Levy the most “ill-conceived, inefficient tax ever introduced in Australia.
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