High rents have been blamed for the increasing number of empty shops at two Williamstown shopping strips.
The shopping strips have featured in Fitzroys’ 2021 edition of Walk the Strip comparing vacancy rates across Melbourne.
Vacancies increased on average by 2.6 per cent across nearly 35 of Melbourne’s major shopping strips, from 7.7 per cent heading into COVID to 10.3 currently.
The vacancy rate in Ferguson Street more than doubled from 4.5 per cent in 2019 to 11.1 per cent this year. The vacancy rate was 4.4 per cent last year.
In Douglas Parade, the vacancy rate rose from 4.6 per cent in 2019 to 10.9 per cent last year and 9.8 per cent this year.
Out of 35 shopping strips, the highest vacancies for 2021 were recorded in Bridge Road between Punt Road and Lennox Street, Richmond (24.5 per cent), Bridge Road between Lennox and Church streets (19.8 per cent) and Lygon Street, Carlton (20 per cent).
Williamstown Chamber of Commerce vice-president Craig Turton said the increased vacancies in Williamstown were due to high rents.
“Obviously COVID has had an impact but what we’re hearing from different retailers is the rents just seem so incredibly high compared to what the turnover is in these stores,” he said.
“In Nelson Place, there’s some vacancies too.
“You’ve got rents that are based on times gone by when the area was flourishing with tourism, and now there’s a lot of competition – you’ve got Yarraville, that has taken off, and Seddon and Footscray and all these sort of areas.
“The rents haven’t reduced, they’ve just remained the same and in many cases – I think this is the big issue – they’re going up 4 per cent year-on-year, sometimes they’re higher than that and inflation’s less than 1 per cent.”
