The Myer Centre - Rundle Mall

[AtD]

I’ve thought about this for a while. This is what I think is needed to to ‘fix’ the Myer Centre. I don't agree with the idea that 5 levels of retail is too high for Adelaide. Myer is a poor design and has given people a bad impression.

The food court downstairs is grungy, cramp and dark. Embrace this with a gritty, urban yet classy decor – think Melbourne Central or The Galeries in Sydney. I think the worst thing about the food court is it just another shopping centre squeezed into a basement. There’s no reason it has to have the same decor as the rest of the centre.

Put something on the top floors that’s worth going to – another food court. The Mall has the demand for more food courts as demonstrated by Rundle Place. Replace the roof with as many big skylights as possible. This will contrast nicely with the basement food court.

Have an express escalator from the mall all the way up to the top floor food court. Get people up there as quickly as possible. Don’t have an express escalator down. I’m not certain on how this could be done – maybe by having it run east-west across the inside of the Mall facade?

Make the North Tce entrance grander and more open. Yes, there is constraint from the heritage facade but a creative design should do the trick. A visitor could walk past the centre along North Tce and not even notice it’s there. The entrance hall is daggy.

Open up the Stephens Place face of the centre as much as possible. Do as much as possible to turn it into an active laneway rather than a glorified driveway.

Lifts: Because they’re in a really obvious location, people use them rather than escalators to go up only two or three floors. Because of that, they’re overcrowded and slow.

It’d be better to have the lifts in one group of four to one side of the centre rather than two groups of two. People will think they’re faster because a lift will come more often. So I suggest relocating them to the KWS side of the centre, right next to the escalators.

Replace the escalators: turn one escalator around in each group so they’re in an X formation (think David Jones). It takes too long to get up and down because there’s too much walking between each escalator. People are lazy.

Have the up escalators in each side face the mall entrances, not hidden in the back corner of the ground floor.

The escalators in Myer: Replace them, again with ones in an X formation.

And of course the Rundle Mall facade – I think the worst part about it is they’ve admitted that it’s crap and neglected it. Now with the proposed upgrade it’s going to be a horrid mix of modern and 90s style. Either clean up the whole thing or replace the whole thing.

I think the repositioning of the lifts and escalators and the new upstairs food court would be enough to pull people upstairs and make the upper floors viable to tenants.

[Maximus]

Pretty much agree with all of this, although it sounds very expensive! But I realise it's just a wish-list. Probably even just the cheaper elements would make a huge difference.

Are there some good examples in other cities of 4/5+ level retail that 'work'? And what's on the top floors of those? I'm not sure if I'm sufficiently convinced that a food court would be enough of a draw-card. As you say, people are lazy. I think it would need an extra 'hook'... Maybe windows all the way round the edge of the food court to take advantage of the city views from that level? Lunch with that sort of a view would certainly be something unique.

[spiller]

I agree with the idea of a viewing area on the top floor. The upper level needs to be a destination in its own right. I remember when dazzleland was there you were always looking up wondering what was going on up there. I don't think ive looked up when in the Myer centre in the last 15 years (because we all know there's nothing to see!).

I think a 360 degree viewing area (not sure this is even possible?) with perhaps a couple of nice bars/ restaurants aimed at attracting city works during the week days and shoppers on the weekends would be the way to go.

[AtD]

Westfield Sydney is the best example here.

The west (old) building has 9 retail levels: B1 is underground food court, G has the Pitt St Mall entrance and an underground mall to QVB and Town Hall Station. Levels 1-6 are all Myer with skybridges on levels 2 and 3 to the east building.

The east (new) building has 6 retail levels levels: 1 is underground with an underground link to David Jones, 2 has the Pitt St Mall entrance and an underground link to David Jones, 3 has the Castlereagh St entrance, a link to The Glasshouse (which goes through to the MLC centre and then through to Martin Pl Station) and the skybrdige to the old building, 4 has skybridges to the old building and the two David Jones buildings, 5 has the food court and 6 is restaurants. There's an express up escalator from Pitt St Mall (level 2) to levels 5 and 6.

Melbourne Central has 5 levels with one underground and a train station under that. It's got a cinema on the top floor.

[Aidan]

I agree with the idea of a viewing area on the top floor. The upper level needs to be a destination in its own right. I remember when dazzleland was there you were always looking up wondering what was going on up there. I don't think ive looked up when in the Myer centre in the last 15 years (because we all know there's nothing to see!).

I think a 360 degree viewing area (not sure this is even possible?) with perhaps a couple of nice bars/ restaurants aimed at attracting city works during the week days and shoppers on the weekends would be the way to go.

I don't think 360° views would be much of a drawcard only six storeys up in the CBD! What we need up there are cinemas - they work well for Brisbane's Myer Centre.

[Aidan]

Pretty much agree with all of this, although it sounds very expensive! But I realise it's just a wish-list. Probably even just the cheaper elements would make a huge difference.

Are there some good examples in other cities of 4/5+ level retail that 'work'?

One taller example is Tunjungan Plaza in Surabaya. This was built on a continuous spiral rather than completely separate levels (though it does still have escalators).

[Nathan]

Omotesando Hills has a spiral floorplan as well, over 6 levels (3 above ground, 3 below). Not quite in the same scale as Tunjungan though (130 stores vs 500 stores).

http://www.omotesandohills.com/floor/fl/index.html?e

[monotonehell]

I don't think 360° views would be much of a drawcard only six storeys up in the CBD! What we need up there are cinemas - they work well for Brisbane's Myer Centre.

You don't have to be particularly high for views to be impressive, and the levels there are taller than most buildings. Although I don't think the views in that direction would be nice to look at.

Only 9 stories;
http://www.sensational-adelaide.com/for ... ad#p113101

[[Shuz]]

Daresay, the best solution to fix it, would be to demolish it and try again!

[monotonehell]

Daresay, the best solution to fix it, would be to demolish it and try again!

There's probably nothing wrong with it structurally. Strip the furbishing and start again.

[MessiahAndrw]

I agree with the idea of a viewing area on the top floor. The upper level needs to be a destination in its own right. I remember when dazzleland was there you were always looking up wondering what was going on up there. I don't think ive looked up when in the Myer centre in the last 15 years (because we all know there's nothing to see!).

I think a 360 degree viewing area (not sure this is even possible?) with perhaps a couple of nice bars/ restaurants aimed at attracting city works during the week days and shoppers on the weekends would be the way to go.

I don't think 360° views would be much of a drawcard only six storeys up in the CBD! What we need up there are cinemas - they work well for Brisbane's Myer Centre.

+1 for the cinema.

[Wayno]

Apparently the Myer Centre just sold to an Asian Investor group for something like $288m. Second highest sale price ever in SA (50% of Westfield Marion sold for over $300m a decade or so ago).

It's believed that this sale will catch the eye of other international investors - potentially bringing more investment our way.