Darwin City is a dead zone, and we need to do more to bring it back to life

TO have nearly 100 vacant shopfronts in the Darwin CBD is a damning indictment on the state of the local economy

A recent walk around the CBD of Darwin between covering McMinn, Woods, Cavenagh, Smith, Mitchell, Daly street and the Esplanade NT News spotted 52 vacant shop fronts, 41 with For Lease signs. Mitchell Centre — Mitchell Street Picture: Justin Kennedy

TO have nearly 100 vacant shopfronts in the Darwin CBD is a damning indictment on the state of the local economy.

While we see our job is to largely promote a positive vision for the Territory, it’s stories like this that need to be told.

This newspaper has been banging the drum loudly in recent years to put pressure on our leaders to focus heavily on making the CBD a vibrant place. We continually say that Darwin needs to be treated as a capital city of Australia.

The reality is when you now walk around the CBD much of it is a dead zone.

Five years ago, there were no doubt a few vacant shopfronts but it’s continually gotten worse. A regular visitor to Darwin for the past five years couldn’t believe the state of the CBD last week.

“What the hell is going on; there’s so many empty shops. I have never seen it so bad,” she said.

The Inpex project has largely taken the blame for the plight of the CBD we now find ourselves in.

But that just doesn’t sit right.

As Real Estate Institute boss Quentin Kilian rightly points out, both the former CLP government and current Labor government have know for nearly a decade that Inpex wasn’t going to sustain a huge amount of jobs in the long-term. The current state of the CBD comes down to a lack of planning and foresight by those tasked with running the Territory.

When the NT News first launched its Let’s Make The Territory Greater campaign in April last year, the message from business was clear that more needed to be done to stimulate the CBD. What’s the point of having direct flights from China when Darwin can offer them little in terms of a vibrant and positive retail experience?

The Territory is, of course, not all about Darwin but the reality is it’s where a majority of our population lives and it’s listed on maps as the capital of the Northern Territory.

There is little doubt the $500 million Cities Deal will be a game-changer for the Darwin CBD when Charles Darwin University brings more than 1000 people into the city.

But that is still possibly two, three, four years, or even longer away. Who knows?

In the meantime, people are packing up and leaving Darwin at an alarming rate. Our great lifestyle isn’t enough to sustain our population and attract new people.

It is imperative that all levels of government work together to come up with an immediate solution to address the current state of affairs in the CBD.