Leasing and Management Gardner+Lang was invited (together with two other agencies) to tender to lease and manage the shopping centre in the heart of Geelong.
On behalf of Geelong City Council and the Ratepayers, the brief was: "to ensure the widest and most viable tenancy mix". When we first reviewed the plans, we perceived there was a serious problem. The limited size of the mid-city site … meant there would not be enough space to accommodate all the necessary major traders on the ground floor. We also found that the architect had proposed several unnecessary ground-floor entrances. And as you’ll appreciate … we felt this would fragment the people-traffic moving past each tenant’s shop. A basement car park was also planned … so we suggested an escalator be used to take the shoppers from the basement directly up to the second level, bypassing the ground floor. This would allow shoppers a very good visual feel as to what was contained within the entire centre. However, construction costs ruled out a basement car park. Therefore we suggested the car park be relocated onto the second and third levels, with its entrance directly into the shops on the second level. The final result was … that Geelong Market Square (with over 100 tenants) proved to be almost fully leased, at the time it opened. |
