Wollongong City Council says it has no plans to reopen Crown Street Mall to traffic, despite a new push from mall property owners who say access for cars could help fix some of the problems facing the ailing retail street.
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However, the new campaign from the Property Council to highlight how business along the city's main shopping strip are at risk of "continual collapse" has prompted the council to plan a forum for those who operate businesses in the mall.
On his first day back on the job after two weeks' leave, Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery said he was open to all suggestions for ways to improve the CBD.
"I'm quite open to all suggestions and I am happy to talk to all stakeholders about that in the coming weeks," he said, noting the council hoped to hold a forum - pandemic permitting - sometime next month.
"The trouble is that while COVID is still a real issue, we're trying to act with one hand tied behind our back."
Cr Bradbery also said the council had invested significant time and money into revitalising the CBD, and pointed to the large number of new residential blocks and office buildings under construction which will hopefully bring more people into the area.
He said he did not believe many of the problems facing retail and property owners could be fixed by council policies alone.
"The implications of COVID is impacting upon not only our mall but shopping precincts all over the economy. And pre-COVID, retail was really struggling as well," he said.
Cr Bradbery said many areas of Wollongong CBD which are open to traffic were also facing these problems, due to the protracted economic and retail downturn.
"It's not the fact that you can drive down the mall that will make it work," he said.
"There's plenty of vacant spaces in lower Crown Street and in western Crown Street. So to infer that it is about being able to drive there, well, I think that argument has some holes in it."
He also warned that the council would need to make any decisions about the mall with the interests of the entire community, not just property owners, in mind.
"The mall is also a public space, for everyone in the city, and it's not just about what retail or property owners want," he said.
The decision to keep the mall shut during the last redevelopment was made originally by administrators, later supported by councillors, based on community surveys at the time which showed 80 per cent of people wanted it to remain closed to traffic.
"The mall as it is has just been refurbished - it's only five years ago that we spent $20 million on it - and now as a society, we're entering into a whole new era of retail," Cr Bradbery said.
"For us to overturn that investment and say we forget that big spend and forget what the community wanted at this time, well I'm not sure we can do that.
"Even if we did decide to reopen the mall, it would take years to do so - and who knows where our society will be in three to five years time."
Responding to the property lobby group's other main request - to lower or remove the expensive mall levies which Crown Street businesses must pay on top of their rates, the council said the money collected from the levies were used to fund maintenance and upgrade works to the City Centre.
"Council's focus at this time is on having measures in place to support our community, and that includes local businesses that have been hit hard by the global pandemic," the council said in a statement.
"It continues to be a difficult time for retail and business as restrictions to support our community's health and wellbeing have impacted upon the way they're able to operate.
"We are aware many businesses in our CBD would be struggling at this time, and have measures in place to provide support.
"For example, we allowed businesses as well as ratepayers to defer their last rate instalment of 2019/20, and we will be redirecting revenues from the city centre's parking meters to provide an additional funding boost of more than $2.3 million into activation in the city centre."
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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.
