Home Property Australia From mixed-use to mixed-experience

From mixed-use to mixed-experience

  • April 18, 2023
  • by Property Australia
Simon Healy, Group General Manager, Commercial & Mixed-Use Development, Mirvac

According to a new discussion paper form Mirvac with WORKTECH Academy, the traditional model of mixed-use will no longer be enough to deliver the outcomes needed to create vibrant and sustainable places where people want to be.

Mirvac’s arguement in the ”Unlocking nexus value, from mixed-use to mixed-experience’ paper is that the conventional approach of mixed-use development, which involves combining physical spaces with different commercial purposes in one area, will not suffice in producing lively and sustainable communities that attract people.

Rather, the key to success will lie in offering diverse and integrated experiences that generate ‘nexus value’. This refers to the additional value that is created when a site is designed to provide improved amenities, enhance quality of life, and offer more than what the individual parts would provide separately.

Mirvac Group General Manager, Commercial & Mixed-Use Development Simon Healy said nexus value is that incremental increase in value that you get when you programme a site to deliver enhanced amenity, to provide a better quality of life for people, and to be more than the sum of the parts.

“Getting the mix of experiences right makes it much more likely that a place will achieve the kind of vibrancy and activation that drives positive social outcomes and encourages people to visit, stay, and come back to that place,” he said.

“The concept of nexus value extends beyond traditional economic metrics to encompass broader social, cultural and environmental benefits. It is less about a simple profit-driven view and more about what will add value to a community in the longer-term. 

“With outcomes in mind, some examples of what we might measure include: net promoter scores, esteem value and civic pride, quality of life index, sense of belonging and human connection, mobility and dwell time and diversity of use.”

The report said mixed experiences can occur in a single building – animating the ground floor of an office with retail, or a program of activations which help bring people back to the workplace. 

While the report noted there is capital outlay early on in the project that may pose a risk it doesn’t perform, the value added can be beneficial from increased property values to broader social, cultural and environment benefits. 

Mirvac’s South Eveleigh in Sydney precinct is home to over 18,000 workers across 120,000 square metres of office space, all sitting alongside a supermarket, brewery and brasserie, services and amenity and retail is an example of this in motion.

“[It] was driven by six guiding principles: Everything connects, Human scale, Be of the past, Be for the future, Big picture thinking, and Create Commonwealth,” Mr Healy said.

“It is a valuable addition to the community delivering a grants program to local organisations, features Australia’s first Indigenous Rooftop Community Garden and is like a free living museum connecting visitors to the country’s industrial revolution through art, artefacts and the careful restoration of the heritage Locomotive Workshop.

“To get South Eveleigh to this point, the project team worked closely with local community groups to blur the boundaries between public and private space. 

“Looking forward we have a number of projects in the pipeline, including Harbourside, Waterloo Collective and 55 Pitt Street. Community engagement and consultation is key in every project, as we look to connect these places of the future with land and history, to ultimately create precincts that will add value to the people who live, work and play in and around these spaces.”