Inside story: How Retail Design Can Change The Entire Scope And Identity Of A Space

Leasing isn’t always about signing new retailers to vacant spaces, as exciting as it is. Sometimes it’s about working with existing retailers to understand if the space they occupy is serving their needs and is the optimal size..

At Rockingham Centre, WA, in discussions with one of the centre's prime retailers, Target, Vicinity’s leasing team saw an opportunity to help resize their store space to be more efficient while remaining in the same place at the centre. The space was a sizeable 8,275 sqm, offering the opportunity to section 2,600 sqm provided the team could identify the right retailer to fit the remaining space and secure mutual agreement from retailers.

“Over the course of a couple of years, the Leasing team was able to evolve discussion and ultimately place popular gym provider, Revo Fitness into the new 2,400 sqm space.

“Signing Revo Fitness proved a win for the community in that they had a convenient gym option at the centre and a win for Target, allowing them to operate to a more effective footprint for their business.”

In collaboration with the retailers and the leasing team, James’ leasing design and delivery team were also able to secure a 200sqm area behind the Revo Fitness space to use as a loading dock, future proofing the site.

But it’s one thing to negotiate an optimistaion of the retail space and bring in another retailer, it’s another to deliver the space. That’s where James and the team come in.

Leasing Design and Delivery is the Vicinity team that brings the visions of incoming retailers to life, helping them curate a space that speaks to their individual brand while complementing the rest of the centre.

We caught up with James to understand how he and the team managed to transform the space and improve the centre.

VCX: Hi James, firstly, tell us about your role and your journey to Vicinity?

JE: My role within Vicinity is a Tenancy Delivery Manager, where I predominantly look after the construction side of outgoing and incoming tenants, working closely with the Leasing team as well as with the Retail Design Managers.

I have a trade background in carpentry which eventually led me into shopfitting. During that time, I had the opportunity to work closely with Tenancy Delivery Managers and Retail Design Mangers and the scope of their roles really interested me, ultimately leading me to pursue a career in Tenancy Delivery from the property owner/manager side.

VCX: So, your role is to help retailers deliver a store, how did that come about with Revo Fitness at Rockingham?

JE: We essentially identified an opportunity to resize an existing space at the centre, reducing it to allow the retailer to be more efficient with their footprint while creating a space of 2600sqm for a future tenant.

Progressing a project like this require agreement from a number of stakeholders, and as discussions evolved we successfully finalised terms with Revo Fitness to occupy 2,400 sqm of the space. This strategic planning by Leasing with Tenancy Delivery support enabled an optimal outcome that serves to meet the retailers' operational needs allowing for the new gym operator to also have the space requirements that are required.

This collaborative effort demonstrates our commitment to optimising the tenant mix while ensuring the long-term sustainability of Rockingham Centre.

VCX: And with the design locked in and the retailer happy, is it just straight to build?

JE: If only! There’s quite a bit of work and pre-planning goes into a project of this nature, and that was certainly the case with this project.

We were responsible for providing all of the works for the resizing, including new staff facilities, which takes meticulous planning. During the planning phase, we also identified we needed to begin prior to Christmas 2023 to start construction the on the new offices and amenities.

Once completed, we were able to construct the new back of house areas and begin the demolition of their existing facilities. Upon completion of the demo, the Inter Tenancy Wall was built to create the Revo Fitness tenancy.

Revo Fitness took their design to tender and after the Development Application was approved, they were straight into building.

VCX: Was there anything different about this design that you found interesting?

JE: Yes, a technical point but Revo Fitness had to work with an overhead plantroom that partially covered their interior amenities. The necessary presence of the plantroom meant that Revo Fitness had to work the concrete and steel beam structure into their design which was new for their normal design concept.

Credit to the designers and cross functional teams - the end result was a great outcome as it worked in with their open ceiling concept.

VCX: Were there any challenges you had to overcome – who was responsible for moving the heavy weights in??

JE: Fortunately, the Revo Fitness team had to shift the heavy weights but that didn’t mean we weren’t without challenges to the project.

All projects have some kind of challenge to overcome but we work hard to find solutions and shape meaningful places where our communities connect.

For this project, the first major challenge was the lack of existing site plans and difficulty undertaking site inspections during the cost estimation and tendering phases with it being a confidential project, both making it more complex to prepare accurate documentation that we could take to tender.

With Target trading in the current space for over 30 years, there have been multiple reconfigurations and upgrades within the tenancy that further complicated the information available for our review and planning. This led to finding latent conditions during the reconfiguration project which put pressure on the programme and budget that was approved.

The other major challenge was completing the works around a trading retailer. The programme started prior to Christmas 2023 which would usually be one of the busiest times in the centre, however due to handover dates of the incoming tenant we had to push ahead.

We worked with both retailers to complete the works in various stages, which included keeping their back of house storage, customer facing service desk and their staff offices and amenities operating until the new works were complete.

It was a great achievement by everyone involved to be able to carve off the space while keeping the store operational at an important time of the retail year.

And back to the weights…once the reconfiguration was complete it was over to Revo Fitness to fitout. The Revo Fitness team had sea containers worth of weights and equipment dropped at site which was all moved into place by hand. But importantly, not by us!

VCX: It sounds like one of your more interesting projects. Are there any other standouts over the years?

JE: One of my favourite projects was also at Rockingham Centre, as we delivered X Golf and Hey Caddy in the Syren St Dining and Entertainment Precinct. Two exciting new entrants that bolstered the centre’s retail mix and combined with other new restaurants in the precinct, have made it the place to be in Rockingham.

For this project, I had to reconfigure two large restaurants with a 500mm step between them into on 850sqm combined space.

The standout for this reconfiguration was a sheer wall (a concrete wall that supports the rest of building from falling over) that was between the two tenancies that were being combined. A structural steel system was installed and an opening of 4m x 10m was cut into the concrete to join the tenancies together. So we managed to create open flow between the spaces to make them truly one space while retaining structural integrity.

VCX: What do you think we’ll start to see change with regards to store design in coming years?

JE: A walk around some of our leading centres, like Chadstone, gives you a glimpse into the future and it’s clear that store experience is the focus. With that in mind, I think we will start to see a lot more stores that have interactive displays or areas for customers to engage, helping draw people into the stores and providing that point of differentiation to online retail.

A really good example of this is at numerous rebel stores that offer basketball courts and soccer cages for customers to play around in.

VCX: If somebody wanted to get into LD&D how would they go about it?

JE: Retail design and construction is fast paced which is challenging but exciting at the same time, and a career path I’d recommend.

Having a background in either design or project management would be the first step. I think speaking to people within the industry and creating those relationships will give you the best opportunity to land a role within the LD&D team.  

The Vicinity Careers page is a good place to start looking too.