Density done well at Clemton Park Shopping Village

Density done well at Clemton Park Shopping VillageFrasers Property Australia’s new retail development in Sydney’s inner west demonstrates how retail within a residential development can boost urban density while creating better places for the entire community.Just 13 kilometres from Sydney’s CBD in Campsie, Clemton Park Shopping Village is an integral part of the new Clemton Park Village masterplanned community. The site will eventually accommodate 7 apartments, home to 1,0 people, across 11 low-rise residential buildings.A joint development between Frasers Property Australia and LaSalle Investment Management, the shopping centre features a Coles supermarket, 21 retailers with a distinct local focus and a range of convenient services.Frasers Property Australia’s executive general manager for retail, Peri Macdonald, says the centre which opened in late March, is a “great example of retail within a mixed-use development done well.”Macdonald says his team is “very careful to design the retail shopping centre to make sure it is sized and tenanted appropriately for the catchment and community it will serve.”While Clemton Park Shopping Village is around 6,7 sqm of gross floor area, other Frasers Property retail projects range from 5,0 sqm at Shell Cove to nudging 40,000 sqm at Edmondson Park.”Creating the right place takes a lot of research. We look at where the catchments are growing, what needs and gaps the communities have, and what competition exists. That way we can design and size centres to meet the needs of the communities we serve.”Clemton Park Shopping Village – which was pre-sold to SCA Property Group in 2014 for $48.5 million – will service up to 90,000 people in the area, Macdonald says.”Our research revealed a big opportunity for a full line supermarket, as that part of Sydney’s inner south west is under-provisioned in terms of supermarket space.”Delving further, Macdonald’s team realised that Coles was under-represented in the area. Coles has since signed a 20-year lease at the centre.”The centre has all the conveniences that you’d want in your local shopping strip – a pharmacy, medical centre, dentist, hair and beauty and a big Asian grocer that fits in well with the local demographic,” he adds.The broader community will see the benefits, Macdonald says, and points to the European-style piazza which is lined with food and beverage outlets with extended trading hours. “We put a lot of effort into designing this so it would be a great space for people,” he says.”We see an opportunity in the super-neighbourhood retail space – and have positioned Frasers Property Australia to develop retail centres that are large enough to be relevant and exciting, but not too large that they blend into the sameness of bigger sub-regional and regional shopping centres.”