| Garden City, Booragoon |
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| shopping centres in perth, western australia | |
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Garden City Shopping Centre, usually known simply as Garden City, is a major regional Shopping Centre in the city of Perth, Western Australia . It is located at the corner of Marmion Street and Riseley Street in the suburb of Booragoon . Garden City is one of four major 'hub' shopping centres in Perth , along with Westfield Carousel , Centro Galleria and Karrinyup Shopping Centre . It is centred in a mainly middle class catchment of approximately 600,000 people. In recent years there have been, on average, 13 million annual individual visits to the centre, generating an estimated turnover of over AU$500 million annually. Locals from all parts of the metropolitan area visit Garden City to shop, dine, socialise, or for entertainment. Garden City has been owned and managed by AMP Shopping Centres since 1986. FACILITIES At present, the main shopping complex has a floorspace of 65,000 square metres. The entire centre is situated on approximately 300,000 square metres of land. The main shopping complex consists of a long main mall with several wings and side malls. Coles and Woolworths are the two principle supermarkets, while the anchor department stores include Myer , David Jones and discount department store Kmart . Notable speciality stores include Dymocks Bookstores, City Beach Surf-wear, Dick Smith Electronics, Freedom Furniture and Lincraft, with a further 200 speciality stores catering for all tastes. The main shopping complex can be broken into several main areas:
In addition to shopping the main shopping complex, Garden City houses:
TRANSPORT AND LOCATION A key Transperth bus station for the southern suburbs, the Booragoon Busport, is located on the shopping centre premises. It links to such routes as the 940 to Perth city centre, and the 155 to Fremantle . Garden City is amply provided with both undercover and open-air parking. INFORMATION Opening hours Most shops in Garden City are open from 9 am to 5.30 pm on weekdays with the exception of Thursday, when open from 9 am to 9 pm for late-night shopping. Some shops such as those in the foodcourt are open longer. On Saturdays, shops open from 9 am to 5 pm. Garden City is prohibited from opening on Sundays except during special occasions such as before Christmas. There are 4200 parking bays in Garden City. Other names Garden City is often called 'Booragoon Shopping Centre'. It is sometimes referred to as 'Garbo's' or 'Garbs', especially among Applecross Senior High School and other regional school students, many of whom frequent the shopping centre after school and on weekends. HISTORY In the late 1960s, the planning department of the State Government drew up a plan for several 'sub-regional' retail centres, which would form the commercial and economic focus of each 'node', and take the retail burden away from the CBD. Booragoon , in the southern suburbs, was chosen as one of the ideal locations. Work on Garden City was undertaken by Hooker Corporation, and began in 1970. In December 1971, Lady Lloyd Jones placed a time-capsule in the ground. The centre was opened in 1972, and immediately became popular as the nexus of the Melville Civic Centre Complex, which had been established after the Melville Council Offices were built in 1968. The site was in the midst of sandy bush, not far from Applecross Senior High School and Wireless Hill Park . The original precinct To visitors today, the original section of Garden City consists of everything from the Davy Street entrance (where the Post Office is situated), to where one reaches the newsagent. Garden City remained this way (with less than 100 shops) until 1983. New department stores In the early 1980s, moves were afoot to upgrade Garden City to meet growing demand. The shopping centre's owners went after big-name department stores. One department store retailer David Jones had withdrawn from Western Australia , and so Boans (West Australian predecessor to Myer ) and Aherns (since Taken Over By David Jones) were selected to build two department stores. In 1983, the first major redevelopment went ahead at a cost of AU$25 million. Foodcourt and cinemas In the next decade or so, demand increased, resulting in the first major expansion in over a decade. In 1994, the current foodcourt was built. This was followed in 1996 with the cinema complex. The new floorspace of 48,000 square metres was however still considered inadequate, and so a second expansion was planned. Major redevelopment The second major redevelopment of Garden City commenced in January 1999 and was completed in October 2000. The main addition was a new eastern section with three parallel malls. Another big change, was the creation of a new 'Marketplace' in the area previously occupied by Kmart , and the re-location of K-Mart to the north-eastern corner of the shopping complex. A new bus station was constructed to replace the old one. This phase of expansion removed much of the ground level parking, replacing it with undercover and rooftop parking. Apart from minor modifications to several satellite buildings such as the demolition of a service station in 2005, the shopping centre has remained largely unchanged since. Almondbury Road traffic As part of the upgrade to the shopping centre in 2000, Almondbury Road, the centre's main northern boundary access, was modified so as to prevent vehicles entering the complex if coming from the west. The plan was to encourage vehicles to use Riseley Street rather than the streets of suburban Ardross . The changes were welcomed by some local residents who saw a substantial reduction in the amount of traffic that had been using local streets to access the shopping centre. However it was equally unliked by many local residents who could no longer easily access the shopping centre, having to go via Riseley Street instead. Particular problems were caused for some residents trying to get to Applecross Senior High School from Booragoon , who were compelled to go around the shopping centre - a route which involved up to 5 sets of traffic lights within 2 kilometres - rather than the previous shorter and easier route. As a consequence, intended or otherwise, the road became the City Of Melville's worst road blackspot by some margin. The option of simply changing the access to permit vehicles to access from the west was politically difficult as it would increase traffic on suburban streets. In March 2006 the Local Council held a community forum to determine what was the best solution for Almondbury Road. At this forum the local residents decided that access would be permitted from the west as had been the case prior to 2000. REFERENCES
CREDITS All photographs by Trimac20 (C) 2006, unless marked EXTERNAL LINKS |
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