Business and retail store vacancy rates soar in Darwin

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The Northern Territory property council is warning the number of empty shops in Darwin's CBD is only expected to increase in the new year. Some local retailers say there's still some business but they're still wary heading into Christmas.

Transcript

00:00 Shop after shop sitting empty in the Darwin CBD, but up in the city's office blocks, vacancy

00:07 rates are even worse.

00:09 We are the highest in the nation, an unenviable position, so it is something that we need

00:14 to be correcting.

00:15 So what we see at the moment is across our CBD is 58,000 square metres of vacant space.

00:21 The property council is sounding the alarm with concerns the problem is only likely to

00:26 worsen in the new year ahead.

00:29 People leaving the territory and this can maybe be related to a whole bunch of reasons,

00:33 whether it's the antisocial behaviour that we've been seeing, the economic downturn,

00:37 but also the cost of living pressures that come with the Northern Territory.

00:41 Smaller retail and hospitality venues are also feeling the pinch.

00:44 The property council estimates around 20% of the city's shops are unoccupied.

00:49 For some of those who've ridden Darwin's boom and bust over the years, they believe it's

00:54 just another period of transition.

00:57 Because there are a lot of owner operators, they do move to different locations.

01:02 So you might find, for example, Rabbit Hole, they were down in the moor, now they've just

01:07 moved across to larger premises.

01:09 The government banking on this new university campus, growing the cruise ship industry and

01:14 attracting big business to turn things around.

01:18 We are riding to and we are talking with big business around Australia.

01:21 The top 200 on the ASX we are engaged with currently and we're going to be trying to

01:26 get them to the Northern Territory.

01:27 For now, traders are most concerned by the cost of living and families tightening their

01:31 purse strings.

01:33 But they're still hoping for a last minute Christmas shopping spree to end the year on

01:37 a high.

01:37 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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