Church Street gets a retail fillip

New outlets in Church Street are providing a fillip to trading in the city’s traditional retail strip, a long-time sufferer of the “pull” of Westfield. The outlets are positioned at the intersection of Church and George streets, at the northern end of the re-opened Church Street Mall. The intersection is one of the busiest vehicle and pedestrian intersections in the CBD.

Three new shops are included in the Commonwealth Bank building – Arthur Weis Menswear, food outlet Wrap Station and KA Studio Photographics – on the south-west corner, and Kathmandu, an outdoor clothing and equipment store, has taken all the space on the north-west corner. The German supermarket giant, Aldi, expects to open an outlet, in March, in George Street, just down from the south-east corner.

UWS academic co-authors gambling study

Dr Richard Woolley, from the University of Western Sydney, and Dr Charles Livingstone, from Monash University, had co-authored a study scathing about the states' regulation of the national poker machine industry.

The study found that state government s are addicted to the billions sucked in every year year from people with gambling problems. Almost half the $10 billion lost on poker machines nationally is spent by NSW gamblers.

The authors said state governments needed to accept less gambling revenue if they were serious about curbing the number of addicts

Centro resists firesale of trophy centres such as Bankstown

To avoid a firesale of its assets, such as its trophy shopping centre at Bankstown, refurbished last year at a cost of $114 million, Centro has asked for expressions of interest to buy the company or its stakes in two Australian and US wholesale funds.

Other options are a recapitalisation or finding white knights to invest in the company.Australia trusts including
Westfield, Stockland and Colonial First State are believed to be interested.

Centro has until February 15 to come up with a rescue plan to refinance $3.9 billion in debt amid the global credit crunch.