New retail precinct for West End in 20 years

One of Brisbane’s oldest communities will soon be home to a major new retail and dining precinct, including Brisbane’s newest full-line supermarket.
 
West Village in West End will ultimately provide local residents with access to 35 new retail, restaurants and food and beverage outlets, as well as a 4,000sqm Woolworths supermarket announced today.
 
West Village developer Sekisui House has entered into an initial 15-year lease to secure Woolworths as the anchor tenant in the project’s 13,000sqm retail and dining precinct.
 
The Woolworths is planned to open in 2020 and will be the first full-line supermarket in West End in 20 years – over which time the local population will have grown by more than 125%, from about 14,000 in 2000 to nearly 32,000 (source: Queensland Government Statisticians Office).
 
West Village Project Director Andrew Thompson said the West End community had experienced significant under-provision of retail and convenience shopping over the past few years.
 
“Research¹ we conducted as part of our Development Application indicated that local residents are spending around $81 million a year in surrounding areas such as Buranda and Toowong because West End is under serviced by supermarkets,” Mr Thompson said.
 
“This new Woolworths will ease the retail spend leakage and keep shoppers in the area to support the local traders and reinforce Boundary Street as the retail heart of the West End-South Brisbane peninsula.”
 
Long-term Boundary Street business owner and immediate past president of the West End Traders Association, Peter Marinelli, said the new supermarket would be a welcome addition to the precinct.
 
"We have waited a long time for retail and convenience shopping in West End to catch up with our population growth," Mr Marinelli said.
 
"Local traders will really benefit from the supermarket's 450 new underground car parks and we look forward to working with the new West Village retail and dining businesses to strengthen our precinct and better compete with the big suburban shopping centres."
 
Find out more about West Village here.
 
¹ Macroplan Dimasi, West Village Economic Impact Assessment, April 2015