Hargreaves Mall retail precinct shows resilience as Bendigo's regional shopping catchment holds firm

Hargreaves Mall and the surrounding CBD retail precinct in Bendigo serve a catchment that extends well beyond the city itself, drawing shoppers from the Loddon, Campaspe and Mount Alexander shires and from smaller towns across central Victoria. This catchment scale gives Bendigo's retail economy a depth of demand that sustains a retail mix — including national anchor tenants and a significant number of independent specialty retailers — that smaller regional cities with more localised catchments cannot support.

The retail sector's performance has been mixed in the post-pandemic period, as it has across most Australian retail markets. The growth of online retail has affected categories including electronics, books and fashion, while food and beverage, health services and experiential retail have generally maintained strong in-store performance. Bendigo's CBD retail mix has adapted to this environment, with a shift toward hospitality, health and wellness, and services tenancies compensating for some of the reductions in traditional retail categories.

The Bendigo Marketplace and the CBD's strip retail complement each other in the retail hierarchy, with the enclosed centre providing an all-weather retail environment that is particularly valued by families and older shoppers, while the strip precinct around Hargreaves Street and Mitchell Street serves food, beverage and specialty retail needs that benefit from the outdoor activation of the heritage streetscape.

Retail investment in Bendigo continues, with the city's retail property owners upgrading tenancy fit-outs and common areas to maintain the competitiveness of the CBD offer against the suburban shopping centres that might otherwise draw the city's resident population away from the central precinct. The heritage character of the CBD is increasingly recognised as a differentiating asset rather than a management challenge.

This article was compiled by AI from the sources linked above and screened before publishing. See our editorial standards.