To see the problems facing Wollongong's CBD, you only have to walk along Crown Street.
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Last week, the Mercury walked from one end of the "high street" to the other, and found one in five of the shopfronts now sits vacant.
Our count, on March 3, took in Harbour Street to the South Coast railway line and included business and service facades - like NSW Government offices, lawyers' premises, the Telstra building on west Crown Street and health premises - as well as retail space.
Overall, there were 36 vacant spaces and vacancy rate of around 19 per cent.
In Crown Street Mall, between Keira and Kembla Streets, there were 18 vacant shops: 11 in the lower end, and seven (including the massive former David Jones premises) in the prime area west of the old amphitheatre.
West of the mall there were 14 vacancies, but many of the shops look run-down or temporary, or are export shops piled high with stock to be shipped overseas.
Halfway towards the railway station, Sharrie Meta, who has run the Crown Bakery Cafe for four years, says she enjoys her job, but plans to leave Crown Street once her contract runs out in September.
"If I didn't have the contract, I would have left ages ago," she said.
She is one of many business owners leaving Crown Street: recently at the lower end M & Michael's Footwear closed up after 64 years and decades-old restaurant Turkish Paradise also shut down.
With retail facing tough times globally, talk of the city's decline has been going on for years and this has only been heightened by the recent run of disasters and economic pressures.
Over the weekend, new Australian figures showed retail turnover slipped by 0.3 per cent in January amid the bushfire crisis off the back of a 0.7 per cent in December.
In this climate, Wollongong City Council last month released a plan which highlighted a long list of the ways the CBD is failing and proposed to overhaul development rules to revitalise the city.
If adopted, it would see an end to the bulky skyscrapers approved and constructed in recent years and pave the way for new precincts - including two zones where new residential units are banned in favour of office blocks.
It would also include a move away from mixed-use commercial and apartments buildings (shop-top housing) which the council says have fragmented Wollongong's main retail streets.
The worst part of Crown Street was the block between Harbour Street and Corrimal Street, which is dominated on one side by Crown Wollongong apartments and has a vacancy rate of 50 per cent (six shopfronts filled, six sitting empty).
Completed in late 2017, the building - which only has one of it's six large new Crown Street shopfronts filled - is one of many approved as a "shop-top" block which council is hoping to phase out.
Real estate agent Ben Mostyn, whose name is emblazoned on several of the vacant shops in Wollongong mall, said he was not surprised to hear that one in five shops along Crown Street was vacant.
However, he said he did not think there was any problem with finding tenants, and put the high number of vacancies down the increase in supply in recent years.
"Personally, there's been plenty of inquiries from tenants, and given the amount of supply compared to other cities, I think we're fine. There's a better retail offering in Wollongong CBD over the last decade, and people still flock towards the premium offerings."
With the large numbers of vacancies surrounding her lower Crown Street shop Take a Hike, retailer Rowena Boreland has made the mall's failings work for her by shop-hopping to cheaper rent every few months.
She estimates she can get a "30 to 50 per cent discount" from landlords just be being willing to move, and recently signed an eight week lease for a new store about half a dozen shops down from her previous premises.
"I was up at the old Optus shop for three or four months, but then I got cheaper rent at this one so it was worth it just to grab the tables and signs and move down," she said.
"I'm only here for eight weeks and then I'm going on holidays. I'm just going to do pop ups from now on because i can finally have holidays and it's not going to be costing me more than $1000 a week in rent while I'm getting no wage."
While it has at least one upside for savvy tenants like Ms Boreland, she is well aware that something needs to be done to save Crown Street.
"This is the worst its ever been in 25 years," she said.
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Kate McIlwain
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
For more than a decade, I've helped the Illawarra Mercury set the news agenda across the region. Currently I'm the paper's health reporter - covering the stories of Illawarra workers and residents in the wake of a global pandemic and at a time where our health systems are stretched to the limit.
