Long Term Game
The Australian Financial Review Property Summit on Monday was a great event and thank you to the AFR, its staff, and all speakers for an insightful look into the commercial property world.
The panel that resonated the most was “The Great Retail Revival” with Elliott Rusanow, CEO, Scentre Group, Peter Huddle, CEO & MD, Vicinity Centres, Russell Proutt, CEO & MD, GPT and Anne Hyland, Companies Editor, The Australian Financial Review.
Retail, particularly shopping centres, has been a grind for many years because of the rise of e-commerce and the changes that have come with it.
How long has this struggle been? This was already the case before 2018, when I remember going into the first Amazon Go store in Seattle. For years, conversations circled around the impacts e-commerce would have on shopping centres: from a boom, to no change, to Armageddon. In reality, aspects of all of those played out at different times, yet the overriding experience has been a slow and steady grind as the sector adjusts to a structural shift that is still unfolding.
The point that really stuck out was Elliott’s comment that working from home for office markets is what e-commerce (still) is for shopping centres.
So true. WFH is the office market’s structural shift, and we have been saying this for 5 years so far.
Is it wishful thinking that everyone is going to come back to the office and things will return to how they were? If the retail structural change is any guide, it could be.
After all, some things in property don’t change. It remains a very long game.
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