High rent and council marketing strategies have come under fire during a forum about revitalising Perth's CBD, despite widespread agreement that resident numbers and foot traffic need bolstering.
Two weeks ago, the City of Perth celebrated the busiest weekend in the CBD for three years, recording 110,000 visitors from Friday night until Sunday.
They had been attracted by events and artists like the Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC), St Jerome's Laneway Festival, Sting and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
"To have so many people flocking to the City of Light for such a wide variety of reasons is great to see and a stunning endorsement for Perth," Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas said.
Andy Freeman is the chief executive of hospitality group Sneakers & Jeans, which operates eight bars and restaurants in the city.
He said it was an exceptionally good weekend for his businesses.
"That Sunday when the UFC and the Red Hot Chili Peppers were on, that was like a Friday in December for me. It was massive," Mr Freeman told an ABC Radio Perth Mornings forum on revitalising the CBD.
Calls for long-term crowds
But he does not believe big one-off events are what his businesses, and the city, need to thrive long-term.
"We do need [visitation] to be more enduring. That weekend, the flash in the pan thing, is very disruptive for us," Mr Freeman said.
He wanted to see more people living in the city and visiting it consistently to allow him to trade seven days a week.
"That's the dream and with density of residents, that's what that creates," Mr Freeman said.
"If people duck out on a Monday for a glass of wine and a meal, that's all I need."
Les Wilson has owned a building on Hay Street Mall for 40 years and says the lack of foot traffic and a high number of vacant shops creates a catch-22 situation for landlords.
"Shops are empty because prospective tenants are nervous that there won't be enough activity," Mr Wilson said.
While many had put this down to rents that were too high for the market, Mr Wilson said the problem was bigger than that.
"The landlords aren't holding out for higher rent. They just aren't getting the interest," he said.
He also wanted to see more CBD residents, and more work by both the city council and state government to attract people into the city on an ongoing basis.
"It needs to be 52 weeks a year. Not just a couple of peak events," Mr Wilson said.
Lower rents to 'turn the lights on'
But Spacemarket managing director Sarah Booth told the forum that commercial landlords had a key role to play in bringing life, and profit, back to underused precincts.
Spacemarket pairs prospective tenants with vacant spaces, often for reduced rents, and is best known for its transformation of the old Myer building in Fremantle into an independent department store filled with pop-up small retailers.
Ms Booth said there were prospective tenants who would bring vibrancy and activity to the CBD if landlords were willing to meet them with a rent they could afford.
"There is a huge demand from people who want to be in the CBD and I talk to them everyday," she said.
"It's not just creatives or artists. There are big arts organisations and non-profits [who want to be there]."
She said while there could be financial incentives for property owners to leave their property vacant, ultimately owners would benefit from increased activity in an area if they did agree to lower rents.
Ms Booth is currently focussed on trying to fill the large number of vacant spaces in the eastern end of the CBD, including the former gas and electricity department heritage building on Murray Street, the old gasworks in east Perth, and several other publicly-owned properties in the area.
She also wants to see legislation that penalises owners who leave their properties vacant for more than a year, saying that will go a long way to addressing the CBD's 20 per cent vacancy rate.
"We need to turn lights on in these empty spaces," Ms Booth said.
"It's one of the many ways that's going to help the CBD become the bright, vibrant, healthy place we need it to be."
The city's lord mayor said commercial landlords had a role to play in bringing activity back to the city but often expected the council to do all the work attracting visitors.
"This is a team game," Mr Zempilas said.
"For property owners to say, 'All the city's hard, there's not people coming in, we can't rent our space', but they haven't lowered their rents, [then] they have to look within first."
Marketing shift criticised
But some forum participants had sharp criticism for the council.
Kristi Dempster is a board member of Activate Perth, a not-for-profit group involved in projects that bring activity to the city.
She slammed the City of Perth's decision to shut down its destination marketing function in 2021 and move to an events-based strategy.
"The event strategy, in my mind, was quite an ignorant move, because density will address the needs of businesses, retail and hospitality businesses commercially over the longer term," Ms Dempster said.
"[The council] removed all responsibility from the City of Perth and the state government to actually position the CBD retail core as a destination within the metropolitan area and within the state."
Ms Dempster said with the mix of bars and restaurants, as well as attractions like the Art Gallery of WA and the new WA Museum Boola Bardip, the city was well positioned to compete with suburban shopping centres.
Mr Zempilas said the cut was made in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic and it would have been irresponsible to spend money on marketing while the city was largely shut down.
