Have a read of this weeks whinge! What are your thoughts? Do you see rent prices in the Queenstown CBD as a problem? Landlords Are Holding This Town To Ransom Looking to rent retail space in this town is frustrating!!! In 99% of towns and cities throughout New Zealand (and from what I’ve seen of the world so far too) a central address might be seen as ‘convenient’, ‘the centre of a community’ and ‘the place you want your business space to be’. However, Queenstown is the complete opposite! I live and work in the centre of town. I get 30-minutes for my lunch break. But if I need to go to an electronics store on my lunch break I have to drive out to Remarkables Park and back - ummm not ideal? Why can’t an electronics store be in town? They can’t afford the rent; another store with high foot traffic of the Ferg-kind (the kind of stats that make landlords see huge dollar symbols) is moving and down-sizing as if it stayed put it would end up facing closure; a national chain store I used to work in with 25 stores nationwide consistently finished dead last when compared with other stores and that was despite 2 of the staff in Queenstown consistently placing in the Top 10 Salespeople nationally! Recently, I’ve heard murmurs an international chain store in the mall can no longer afford the rent of its prime location; even brilliant stores that provided variety like Kapa Gallery/Gift Store has had to close its doors in town to operate only out of the airport I assume only because of the high rent it was facing from a landlord that is more intent on seeing huge sums of money line their pockets rather than better our town - let’s hope something different opens up in its space and not just another souvenir store, info centre or place to eat! Councillors, if you are serious about encouraging new business ventures and expanding Queenstown’s appeal to industries other than tourism, you need to seriously think about placing a cap on the rent that can be charged to tenants - that way good honest people with ideas and dreams of opening their own businesses (that aren’t necessarily tourism related) can give it a shot! If we are going to be taken seriously on the world stage as a world class resort, we need to not only focus on the needs of tourists, but also the needs of the community that support these tourists during their stay. Frustrated Entrepreneur!
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 03:39:59 +0000
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