Charter Hall has been given the green light for a $40 million expansion of Secret Harbour Shopping Centre, the latest in a growing list of major retail malls increasing their floor space.
The proposal, which was recently recommended for approval by the metropolitan south development assessment panel, seeks to almost triple the size of the centre, from its current 6,300 square metres to more than 16,000sqm, including two new supermarkets and 40 specialty retailers to be added to the mix, to put it in the top 50 WA shopping centres.
A tender process for a construction contractor for the project, designed by i2c Architects, is expected to be launched shortly.
Charter Hall bought the centre in 2013 from Perpetual for $33.2 million.
“We are very excited to have received the development application approval and look forward to progressing the redevelopment plan through its final approval stages,” a Charter Hall spokesperson said.
The Secret Harbour expansion follows Scentre Group unveiling a $235 million redevelopment plan at Westfield Carousel in Cannington in December.
The Carousel plan to add nearly 50,000sqm of space will return the centre to the top of the BNiQ Shopping Centres list, a perch currently occupied by Lakeside Joondalup Shopping City, which recently completed a $300 million expansion and opened the state’s first new Myer store in 20 years.
Lakeside made another significant splash earlier this year, when it was announced that WA’s first H&M store would open in the shopping centre, while German supermarket giant Aldi has also chosen the mall to be part of its initial roll-out in Western Australia.
Federation Centres, which is preparing for a $22 billion merger with Novion Property Group, and fresh from completing a $39 million, 18,000sqm expansion of Warnbro Centre, is set to begin construction in May on a $54 million, 10,400sqm revamp of Halls Head Central near Mandurah.
Also in Mandurah, Federation Centres is advancing plans for a $250 million redevelopment of Mandurah Forum, expected to kick off in the 2016 financial year.
However, its biggest planned expansion is a redevelopment of the Galleria Shopping Centre in Morley, scheduled for FY2017 and estimated to cost between $300 million and $420 million.
That expansion is in the early planning phase and a spokesperson for Federation Centres said the exact size of the redevelopment was not yet known.
AMP Capital is planning the biggest, and most transformative, expansion of them all – a $750 million revamp of Garden City Booragoon to include not only nearly 50,000 extra square metres of retail space, but also a town centre-style hospitality strip and 120 apartments in the first stage, with more expected to follow.
A Property Council of Australia survey released last year found Perth needed an additional 200,000sqm of retail space to keep pace with WA’s rapid population growth.
