This article by Kelly Miller, General Manager, Retail – Mirvac, forms part of SCN’s annual CEO Outlook feature published in Big Guns 2024. Premium members can view the full digital magazine here.
Despite the 2023 financial pressures and market challenges, retail has been the beneficiary of an altered landscape, changing drivers and return of tourism. We have seen that the great places to shop, work and play within our industry continue to be resilient and are benefitting from increased consumer loyalty and engagement. We feel privileged to have growing productivity and traffic in our centres and the great people delivering these results.
As a result of continued resilience and growth we will be further investing in our key centres – Orion Springfield Central, Birkenhead Point and Broadway Sydney.
Broadway, now sitting at $16,449/m2 in MAT is about to undergo its next phase of strengthening with the Heritage-listed Model & Moxham Stores building repositioning. Fronting Parramatta Road, Rebel and Broadway are embracing the rich heritage of the original Grace Bros, delivering a three-level experience store. Showcasing an expanded range of products and interactive zones, this new Rebel (rCX) will offer an amplified in-store experience for customers. The works will be a catalyst for future changes at Broadway Sydney.
Mirvac is known for delivering exceptional places and projects across Australia’s major cities, all while ensuring that we retain a reputation for quality, for care, for being a leader in sustainability and innovation, and for being a trusted partner. As we welcome a new year, we know there will be challenges ahead, but our continued focus on purpose, collaboration and sustainability will put our centres and the partners who chose to grow with us in a strong position.
Broadway Sydney
Accelerated purpose for our planet and communities
At Mirvac, sustainability is in our DNA, but it’s clear with increasing severe and catastrophic weather events impacting supply chains, construction, operations and human safety that our planet needs even more from us.
At our end we are now working to deliver on our Net Positive Carbon Plan, which will achieve net positive scope 3 emissions by 2030. Our focus is on the materials we buy, emissions from waste disposal, and the energy used by our Centres and retail partners.
Already we use 100% renewable energy in our centres and our next generation Harbourside retail asset in Sydney will reflect our focus on delivering leading sustainable centres of the future.
Government and big business can make a meaningful difference to not only the health of our planet but also the health of our communities, and how they look, feel and behave for future generations.
Australians are resilient, but recent times have seen an uptick in crime, poverty and political unrest and our industry, the creators and stewards of community centres, are very exposed to these conflicts. Through 2023, retailers and centres have seen an increase in crime and theft. We of course, alongside Government, are working as an industry to change legislation and improve the safety of our environments. Ideally, we will see a decline in this behaviour through 2024, however, given financial and social pressures, this could remain a challenge for some time.
We believe there is an opportunity for our industry to further contribute to cultural improvement and safety in our communities through our strongest attribute – our people. Without our teams, customers, and partners, our retail centres would not exist. By focusing on initiatives that enable our customers to learn, contribute, connect, make a difference small or large and safely belong to something bigger than themselves, we hope to support broader industry action to make our communities safer and stronger.
Harbourside, Darling Harbour
Partnerships in a digital era
Outside of environmental and social changes, we see digital capacity and capability as both a requirement to change and an opportunity. As an industry, we have learnt to create collaborative national transformation plans on the challenges that face us. And together we will need to adopt new training requirements to counteract these challenges and learn how to navigate, evolve and thrive.
As a society, we have already turned our attention to privacy, security and cybercrime. We have seen rapid changes in business operating models and the disruption of supply chains – core to these changes is the constant and rapid evolution in digital capacity and capability. On the other hand, the opportunities are limitless. The digital era presents us an opportunity to connect with our communities and consumers more often, adapt our buildings and operations and, importantly, create a platform for growth.
To support the aspiration of deeper connection with our customers and partners, we have invested in a new website and improved our social channels and the results have been overwhelmingly positive. Our customer engagement has increased by close to 60% of our trade areas, and we are thrilled that there has been flow on to our participating retailers’ sales. Our ongoing investment and focus in this area should only further strengthen engagement and retailer performance.
We have openly spoken about being more than a property solution and believing that the future of retail will integrate inclusivity, sustainability, convenience, and physical and digital spaces. The area of opportunity for us was to maximise value into digital spaces and, for that reason, in 2023 we invested in The DOM online outlet marketplace. The DOM’s purpose of disrupting the cycle of fashion and building a brighter future for all, and their determination to improve the experience for customers and brands alike, spoke to our strategic pillars.
2023 was a year of supporting The DOM team in growing customer awareness and loyalty through the Mirvac 100 million plus audience across Retail, Office and Living. In 2024, we will be focused on supporting The DOM’s purpose and further connecting partners to its rapidly growing platform.
Commentators continue to imply the increasing adoption of digital retail channels will deteriorate bricks-and-mortar relevance and growth. Yet we continue to see increased interest in bricks-and-mortar and demand for retail space. The growth possibilities will of course keep changing with our audiences and partners as they adapt to our ever-changing ways of living. We firmly believe the organisations that embrace the growth possibilities will be best placed for 2024 and beyond.
The future
Despite financial pressures we are cautiously optimistic about the year ahead and incredibly excited about the years to come! We are at an inflection point of change. The shifting dominant consumer is changing and how we respond to that by sustainably investing in the right changes to centres, partnering with retailers who know their market and community, being open to change, and focusing on our people and things truly important to our communities and partners will make a substantial difference.
Our industry is already adept at offering spaces that amalgamate businesses into a single accessible location that act as places of respite, connection, celebration, and fun. The initiatives we deliver can lift spirits, positively impact environmental outcomes, drive social change and be spaces of commercial prosperity.
At Mirvac, we will be continuing our journey of how to best do this to redefine the Australian shopping experience in addition to the experience our Mirvac partners and customers have.
