Everton Park: A retail destination.

$60 million is what it costs to build a new shopping complex these days. At least, that’s the price tag on the new Everton Park development that will see a Woolworths supermarket, a Masters Home Improvement centre, approximately 1,000 square meters of specialty retail, 800 square meters of commercial tenancies and 269 car spaces.

After lying dormant for more than two decades, the abandoned Woolworths distribution centre saw construction commence on the 7.5 hectare site in June this year, with completion scheduled for mid-2015.

This development is expected to generate 150 jobs during construction and 300 jobs once complete. And where there are jobs, people want to live close by. Probably why there’s a further application pending for 100 residential apartments.

Shopping centres in particular, represent a unique influence in the impact they have on housing prices. The benefits associated with close proximity to a variety of retail stores and restaurants are clear.

And with an increase of people to the area comes an increase in demand for housing. And demand (for housing) is an investor’s (or property owner’s) best friend.

It’s also the norm these days that both parents of families work, which places great pressure on free-time. Think grocery shopping, children’s sport, laundry, dry cleaning, house-keeping, lawn moving, new shoes, catching up with friends and what about date-night?

So families these days – and families in the Everton Park area in particular – stand to benefit from even greater choices when it comes to getting the things they need to maintain their busy lives, without having to leave the area.

So, what about the impacts on the current Everton Park retailers once the transformation of this graffiti-covered, shabby, derelict site occurs?

Iconic local fruit and veg shop, Charlies is all for the development, with Charlie’s Fruit Market’s Michael Tabet saying the development would benefit local traders as it would bring people to the area.

But it’s not all rainbows and unicorns for this development, with objections coming from local retail giants stalling the development process and the obvious impact it will have on local traffic congestion.

The good news is that with the development now underway, the Department of Main Roads has approved an application for the upgrade and widening of local roads, which should see improved traffic flow at the already busy intersection of Stafford Road and South Pine Road, Everton Park.

As the saying goes, only Hicks Real Estate things matter when buying real estate: location, location, location. And despite some reservations about increased traffic to the area, we can only see good things coming from the development of this site; particularly Everton Park’s emerging status as prime residential location and one-stop retail destination.