GOULBURN’S planned Big W store is not the only one the chain has branded “unviable.”
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Last April the corporate also pulled out of its Moree development and in September it announced its Vincentia store would be placed on the backburner due to costs and the wider economic environment.
“In the eight years since the project first commenced, the development has become financially unviable and the current state of the retail sector in Australia has further added to that uncertainty,” a company spokesman told the Moree Champion at the time.
“As a value-driven discount department store reliant on high sales volumes at low margins, it is vital that each Big W store has low development and operational costs.
This was no longer the case for the Moree project.” In Vincentia, Woolworths Limited community and government relations manager, Simon Berger said the company was reviewing the planned store’s scale.
Mr Berger told the South Coast Register that slowing of projected population growth, the cost of contribution to local roads and other infrastructure and the general uncertainty of the climate for retail were the main factors behind the decision.
“The cost of contributing to local roads and other infrastructure, which a recent tender process has priced at around $9 million, has placed enormous strain on project feasibility,” he said.
A&A Lederer has been trying to secure a suitable site for Big W in Goulburn for several years.
Parent company Woolworths has also purchased and secured options for properties around Lagoon St but has not acted on them yet. Council has continually stressed that Marketplace was its preferred option for Woolworths’ expansion.
Lederer asset manager Steve Lacey did not believe Woolworths was interested in establishing Big W at the CBD’s northern end given that the company appeared to be ruling out Goulburn for now.