Mecca to beautify iconic Sydney Gowings Building

Beauty empire Mecca Brands will take over the heritage-listed Gowings Building in the Sydney CBD.

Jo Horgan, founder of Mecca Cosmetica at her Toorak Road store. Picture: David Geraghty

In a marriage of two iconic names in Australian retail, beauty empire Mecca will take over the heritage-listed Gowings Building in the Sydney CBD.

“It’s the most iconic retail location in Australia,” said Mecca Brands founder Jo Horgan of the 91-year-old building.

“It’s the first time in Mecca’s history that we’re taking a site that in and of itself is considered newsworthy. We have our work cut out for us.”

The result will be the largest beauty store in the southern hemisphere, set to open in the second half of the year.

“For me, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and we will get it right, whatever that takes, however we get there. I want our customers to come in and go ‘wow!’ ”

The store will cover 1200sq m, twice the size of Mecca’s largest store in Highpoint Shopping Centre outside Melbourne.

Ms Horgan’s “ode to beauty” will cover three floors from the lower ground, which opens into the Queen Victoria Building arcade, “one of the highest footfall thoroughfares in Australia”.

As well as its immersive retail spaces, the store will include private treatment rooms, a make-up beauty lab and space for events and experiences.

It’s the end of a three-year search for a Sydney site where Ms Horgan could “realise our vision for truly the mecca of beauty — to actually be our name”.

Ms Horgan said she “went into complete overdrive” to secure the site as soon as she heard the faintest rumblings of a change of lease, currently held by British fast- fashion retailer Topshop.

Given that other large global brands were also eyeing the site, Ms Horgan left nothing to chance in convincing landlords Event Hospitality and Entertainment, which owns the adjoining QT Hotel, of her vision.

“They could see that, one, we were crystal clear on how we could deliver this mecca of beauty in a really large footprint. Two, they saw that we recognised and valued the history of Gowings, the preciousness of the site, the unique story and location put together. And three, they could also see how excited we were to really take the building back its former glory.”

Ms Horgan said Mecca was ­already working closely with the Sydney City Council and heritage team, “because we want everyone to be happy with Gowings, because Gowings belongs to Sydney and Sydneysiders”.

Ms Horgan launched Mecca in a 79sq m store on Toorak Road in Melbourne’s South Yarra in 1997. It has grown to 106 stores across Australia and New Zealand, and will hit 115 by the end of this year.

According to 2019 IBISWorld estimates, it has cornered about 10 per cent of the total $4.2bn Australian beauty market.

While there would be a number of technological innovations in the store, Ms Horgan said Mecca was thinking about how it could have technology “support the customer journey, not overtake it”.

While online sales are strong — last year she told Vogue Business that almost 15 per cent of sales were online, around double the average for Australia — Ms Horgan was passionate about the bricks-and-mortar experience.

“We aspire to be the quiet achievers in digital,” Ms Horgan said.

Event Hospitality and Entertainment chief executive Jane Hastings said: “Gowings is one of Australia’s busiest pedestrian corners. Mecca is a perfect fit to complement a corner where ­hospitality, entertainment and beauty set a world-class standard of their own.”