Is the Brisbane CBD really ‘dead'?
If there is a magical time and day of the week that Queen Street Mall feels like a 'ghost town', I would like to be more across it, so I can plan all errands and endeavours for that specific window.
Our office is in the CBD. It takes about three minutes to walk to the lights on Adelaide Street and up to the entrance of Queen Street Mall. It takes even less time for me to feel smothered by crowds and panicked for a strong perimeter of personal space.
Even recent shopping trips into the city on weekends, or walks through the CBD on weeknights, show strong pedestrian activity and a busy food and drink scene.
These are, of course, surface observations and there's every chance bottom lines are telling a different story. It's also not to say the CBD hasn't faced a few rough years.
COVID reshaped office culture, impacting foot traffic and trade for retailers. There's been the loss of mall stalwarts Myer, the Pig 'N' Whistle and Milano, and growing competition from boutique shopping precincts like James Street.
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But data shows that period of uncertainty is stabilising. In the first half of 2024, Brisbane's CBD had the second-highest retail vacancy rate in the country, with 19.2 per cent of shops empty. By December, this had decreased to 18.5 per cent. We'll find out if that fell further in the first half of 2025 at the end of the month.
In the meantime, activations and new retailers show signs of life, particularly around the top end of the mall where trade was suffering. In January, fashion brand Country Road submitted plans for a new flagship store in the Bank of New South Wales building. Across the way, shoe retailer Skechers opened a store in March, followed by Asics in April.
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But the conditions for success during that era were some of the best the pizza chain could have wished for. COVID-19 lockdowns keeping everyone at home created huge – but temporary – demand for food delivery. Fast-food customers and investors alike were grabbing a slice of Domino's, which reached a share price record high of nearly $160 in September 2021. Since then, however, it hasn't capitalised on their flash-in-the-pan success. Pizza sales have stalled. Profit predictions were downgraded three times in a year. 'It has been this huge growth story for a long time. The last two or three years hasn't [delivered] any growth,' said investment banking firm Barrenjoey's head of consumer research, Tom Kierath. Investors fled the stock after van Dyck's resignation was announced, sending the share price to little over a tenth of that peak to $16.96. Cowin was aware of the need to reassure rattled shareholders, with van Dyck's departure coming so soon after Meij's. 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But margins were eroded by the spurt of high inflation across ingredients such as cheese as well as wages, fuel and electricity. Meij tried to pass this on by imposing a 6 per cent delivery fee, which backfired with customers who punished the move by buying fewer pizzas. 'Relative price point becomes very important,' said Ten Cap co-founder and lead portfolio manager Jun Bei Liu. 'This price increase for the fast food category was just so wrong.' Several fund managers, stock pickers and analysts believe at least some dead weight needs to be shed. Domino's should sell France and exit Japan, said outspoken stockbroker Angus Aitken. Barrenjoey's Keirath agrees. 'If they get Taiwan, right, is it going to move the dial? No, it's becoming a distraction. The same in Malaysia,' he said. 'What you do by staying in those markets is you dilute the core markets.' Who's up for the job? Recruitment is under way for Van Dyck's replacement. 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