10 minutes with… AEDA executive manager, Rundle Mall, Andrew White
The executive manager, Rundle Mall, at the Adelaide Economic Development Agency speaks to Business Insight about changing retail trends, e-commerce and the strip’s low vacancy rate.
You’ve now been executive manager of Rundle Mall for three years. What’s changed there in your time?
My key priority has been working with our team to develop and deliver a new strategic vision and place-making strategy.
For many years, the Mall was positioned and known mostly as a shopping precinct and our offer was quite transactional. With our new vision and strategy, we’re evolving the Mall to have a much more holistic offering – sure there’s a lot of shopping to be had, but the Mall is also a destination for arts, culture, entertainment and food.
We’re still focused on economic outcomes for our retailers, but we now achieve that by making Rundle Mall somewhere you can spend the day enjoying a range of experiences, including shopping. The simplest way to describe it is a shift from transaction to interaction.
What retail trends have emerged since you took charge, and how is Rundle Mall responding?
Retail is ever-changing and omni-channel and that shift has been under way for many years now. That means brands need to create an in-store experience with touchpoints and services that complement the connection consumers have developed online.
Some great examples include the interactive footy, soccer and basketball zones in Rebel Sport’s three-storey store, Dymocks converting Regent Theatre into the state’s largest bookshop complete with reading nooks and a café overlooking the Mall, the R.M.Williams’ store fit out which pays homage to the brand’s renowned craftsmanship, and the opening of Sportsgirl’s new two-storey flagship at the corner of James Place where the exterior facade wears the brand’s iconic colours loud and proud and instore there’s a spectacular mural embodying the sense of fun that Sportsgirl’s known for.
The intersection of entertainment and shopping to shift retail precincts into day/night destinations is another. The creation of a new entertainment and dining precinct on Level 1 of Rundle Place, which was formerly a Harris Scafe, creates a nighttime economy that gives visitors a reason to stay for longer. This precinct encompasses fun for all ages with Hijinx Hotel’s challenge rooms, along with arcade games, 10-pin bowling, dodgem cars, and you can round out your night with dinner from a handful of different restaurants.
In an era of online shopping, how do you make a place like Rundle Mall relevant to consumers?
You can’t compete with the convenience of online shopping from the comfort of the couch. That’s why experience is vital to the success of bricks-and-mortar retail.
We amplify what retailers do in-store by creating unexpected, memorable experiences that keep the Mall fresh, new and give people a reason to come into the city. We focus on leveraging what’s unique to us and make Rundle Mall an extension of what’s happening elsewhere in the city or state. You could be in Times Square in New York or Rodeo Drive in Los Angeles, and you couldn’t do what we do in the Mall.
For example, we bring the fun and frivolity of Adelaide Fringe into the Mall for five weeks every February and March with MallFest, through a program of street performances, live music and pop-up bars. When AFL’s Gather Round comes to town, we put on four days of footy fun for our local and interstate visitors, including interactive games and immersive brand zones. Each year, big and small, there’s more than 400 events and activations along the 520-metre length of the Mall to add vibrancy to what’s an already buzzing precinct.
It is also a pretty competitive place right now with other suburban shopping hubs improving their offering to keep pace with the Mall. Do you see them as a threat?
Rundle Mall is a place like no other. It’s beloved by every South Australian and with that comes a sense of ownership and pride in the Mall’s success. Every South Australian will have memories of visiting the Mall across their lifetime, they may have met friends at the Mall’s Balls ahead of a day of shopping, had a photo taken with the bronze pigs Horatio, Augusta, Oliver and Truffles, or simply enjoyed a day of shopping.
People shop at their local suburban centre for convenience, for groceries, or to fill a prescription – but they come to the Mall because with more than 700 stores and 300 services, we have something for every age and every budget. We’ve got luxury, we’ve got the flagship stores for national and international brands, and we’ve got the mum and dad run local businesses and start-ups testing new concepts in our arcades, laneways and centres.
That shift from transaction to interaction also sets us apart. It means shopping is just one part of a visit to the Mall, because our visitors are taking in one of the many events and activations, they’re having something to eat and drink, or they’re experiencing one of the growing number of entertainment options here. Rundle Mall is an open-air environment with an atmosphere like no other. Other suburban shopping precincts would simply love to have what we have.
Rundle Mall has a pretty low vacancy rate compared to similar centres interstate. What’s the key to success here?
I genuinely believe that Rundle Mall is the best mall in Australia.
When you look at Sydney or Melbourne, for example, they’re sprawling metropolises with economic activity spread across a wide area. Adelaide, however, is a single CBD model – all the economic and cultural life is focused around the city and Rundle Mall is at the geographic centre and is the epicentre of city retailing.
Approximately $1.4 billion is spent in Rundle Mall each year, which represents 85 per cent of all retail spending in the City of Adelaide. Last year, 54 million people visited the Mall, more than double that of Melbourne’s Chadstone Shopping Centre and more than South Australia’s three Westfield shopping centres combined. Rundle Mall is one of the busiest, if not the busiest, malls in the country, which has it very much on the radar for brands looking to expand.
Local, national and international brands see Rundle Mall as the ideal place to prove their concepts and test the South Australian market, and it’s one of the reasons demand for Mall-facing tenancies is so high and strip vacancy is just 3.4 per cent – the lowest in the country. UNIQLO is one of the most recent examples of a major brand that launched its first South Australian store in Rundle Mall to great success and then expanded elsewhere.
As the former leasing executive for Maras Group and the former CEO of Renew Adelaide, you must know a thing or two about bridging the gap between property owners and tenants. What’s core to keeping that relationship stable and friendly?
Rundle Mall’s operating model is unique in that AEDA doesn’t own any of the buildings or centres; instead, we are the Mall’s custodian.
We work closely and enjoy strong relationships with both property owners and tenants because we understand their priorities, challenges and work hard to support them to achieve their goals. We have property owners and businesses that have been in the Mall for decades and it’s great to see them fully invested and engaged in what we are doing. This model doesn’t exist anywhere else around the country.
We help property owners to optimise their tenancy mix by attracting and facilitating introductions to new brands. Meanwhile, we provide opportunities to retailers and service operators to feature in Runde Mall’s marketing activities, whether that’s promotion via the Mall’s digital channels or participation in an event or activation. When they’re successful, we’re successful.
