“It was one my favourite things to do,” the 47-year-old says.
With the help of a City of Melbourne grant,Koky Saly opened up the BeeKeeper Parade on Centre Place laneway six months ago.Paul Jeffers
“I’ve always been a bit of dreamer and a romantic. I loved it when it rained and when it was foggy. It always felt like I was watching a scene in a movie.”
The Cambodian-born refugee,who fled during the Khmer Rouge regime after being born in a prison andsought asylum in Australia as a child,has become one of more than 800 traders who signed leases and opened up businesses across Melbourne’s CBD in the last year.
New data collated by global commercial real estate service CBRE and released by the City of Melbourne shows CBD retail vacancy rates have halved in the past year,from 13 to 6.5 per cent,after reaching a record high of 31 per cent in 2021.
The CBRE data is reflective of other snapshots captured by commercial real estate groups including global company JLL,which estimated vacancy rates for stores inside Melbourne’s CBD shopping centres were hovering at 6.7 per cent.
Melbourne has snagged the title of lowest retail vacancy rate in the country as it slowly crawls back to its pre-pandemic glory when CBD retail vacancy rates hovered between 4 and 6 per cent.
National data shows Melbourne’s CBD has the lowest number of empty shopfronts in any major city in Australia,followed by Sydney (8.1 per cent),Brisbane (18.7 per cent) and Perth which has reported a 25.3 per cent retail vacancy rate.
Head of retail and alternatives research at CBRE Kate Bailey attributed the drop in rental retail vacancies in Melbourne compared with other cities to several factors,including a surge in people returning to the CBD after prolonged lockdowns.
This includes a CBD population boom,supercharged by the return of international students and office workers and fuelled by crowds flooding in for major events,.
Bailey said flagship retail businesses were also more likely to set up their headquarters in Melbourne’s CBD than in suburban retail stores.
But what has surprised her has been the sharp reduction in retail vacancies in Melbourne’s famed arcades and laneways.
“The arcades and laneway are really interesting drawcards,and they are part of the little things that make Melbourne so unique and that is why we are seeing so many new businesses open up there,” she said. “I think there has also been a really concerted effort to bring people back to Melbourne’s CBD after the pandemic.”
With the help of a City of Melbourne grant,Saly opened up the BeeKeeper Parade on Centre Place laneway six months ago.
It is an upcycled bags and accessories store,which is also a social enterprise,raising much-needed funds for schools Saly helped build in Cambodia.
Australia's rental vacancy rate drops to record low
It was also a lifelong goal of his sister Sophia,who died of cancer more than a decade ago.
In her will,Sophia left Saly her car to use the money to create a business to inspire change in the world and help impoverished communities and schools back in their motherland of Cambodia.
“I feel like this is my sister’s dream too,” he said.
“To have this shop in such an iconic laneway is so special. I hope to be here for many,many years and that we become part of its history and part of Melbourne’s history too.”
Koky Saly runs his dream shop in Centre Place laneway. Paul Jeffers
As reported earlier this year,Melbourne CBD’s new peak periods for crowds are the prime party times of Fridays,Saturdays and Sundays.
But on top of this,the council said a new trend is emerging where more people are coming into the city on Mondays during peak morning commute times,without a drop in attendance on other weekdays – and Flinders Street Station recorded its busiest Mondays since 2020 earlier this year.
“We’re seeing more and more people come back to the city every time we run an analysis,” said Bailey.
This has coincided with an increase in dining and entertainment spending – which has tripled since 2021 – indicating that office workers are spending more time in the city and supporting traders during the week.
The data shows for the first quarter of the year people spent $714 million on dining and entertainment in the CBD during work hours,compared to $659 million during non-work hours.
A breakdown between weekdays and weekends showed that $915 million was spent on weekdays in the first four months of the year,and $423 million on weekends.
A decline in retail vacancy rates has also swept Carlton where retail vacancies in Lygon Street,hit hard during the prolonged lockdowns,have decreased by more than 50 per cent,according to the council.
Carlton has an overall retail vacancy rate of 11.1 per cent,while in Lygon Street the rate has dropped to 8.3 per cent.
Lygon Street has bounced back after being hit hard by COVID.Joe Armao
In North Melbourne and Kensington,shopfront vacancy rates have tumbled by about 40 per cent in two years,hitting 10.4 per cent and 8.7 per cent respectively.
Lord Mayor Sally Capp said Melbourne now had the highest foot traffic in the state,with hundreds of thousands of people coming into the city every day. “This is great news for traders,and together with a strong pipeline of events and more support for businesses,this explains why more businesses are choosing city locations,” she said.
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