For many retail landlords, opening day represents the culmination of the leasing process. For Nation, Coronation’s Build-to-Rent platform, it marks the beginning of an ongoing relationship.
As the long-term owner and operator of its communities, Nation has a shared interest in ensuring the resident experience, retail offer and broader precinct are set up to succeed together over time. By remaining closely connected to the people who live there, the retailers who trade there and the neighbourhoods around them, the business can play an active role in strengthening all three.
This approach is fundamental to how the business creates and operates its neighbourhoods.
“Retail is an important part of the resident experience, but the relationship works both ways. A great retail offer makes a place better to live, while an engaged residential community gives retailers a connected customer base right on their doorstep.” – Charlotte Dillon, General Manager, Nation
More than a catchment
Residential density has always mattered to retail leasing, but Build-to-Rent adds another layer. Nation’s model is built around resident retention, with service, hospitality, experience and community forming an important part of how people experience the places they live. Through onsite teams, resident communications, its digital platform and year-round programming, Nation maintains an ongoing relationship with residents well beyond the point of move-in.
That relationship creates opportunities for retailers, too. Nation introduces residents to new operators, creates resident-exclusive offers and experiences, integrates retailers into community programming and events, and gives residents more reasons to spend within their own neighbourhood.
Proximity alone does not guarantee patronage. A café, restaurant or gym downstairs still needs to earn repeat customers, but the model creates more opportunities to build awareness, trial and loyalty from the outset.
At Mason & Main in Merrylands, Nation’s 400-plus+ Build-to-Rent homes sit within a broader precinct spanning dining, cafés, fitness, convenience and everyday services. The mix serves residents while also giving the wider Merrylands community reasons to visit and return.
The model changes the relationship with operators from the outset. From a retailer’s first day of trade, we want them to become part of the everyday life of the place. Our relationship doesn’t stop when the doors open, we can play an active role in connecting them with residents, visitors and the broader community.
For fitness and wellness operator One Playground, the relationship has extended beyond a single precinct. Following its experience at Mason & Main, the company has committed to two further Nation communities, at Precinct 75 in St Peters and Waterloo.
“Being part of Mason & Main has shown us the value of operating within a precinct where residential, retail and wellbeing are genuinely connected,” said Justin Ashley, Founder and CEO of One Playground.
“Nation’s ongoing involvement creates more opportunities for us to engage with residents and become part of the everyday life of the community. That experience has given us confidence to continue the partnership at Precinct 75, where we see the same opportunity to build strong, connected communities around health and wellbeing.”
One precinct, one ecosystem
That thinking also changes the way residential engagement, retail marketing and community programming come together. Rather than treating them as separate streams, Nation uses each to strengthen the others, creating experiences that support residents, generate visitation and give retailers meaningful ways to participate in the life of the precinct.
At Mason & Main, that approach is already embedded in the year-round activation calendar. Retailer Sogogi has hosted a resident kimchi-making class, San Churro has been brought into movie nights, and One Playground instructors regularly lead exercise classes for residents. Eat Street also becomes a gathering place for major sporting moments, with large screens bringing people into the precinct for events including State of Origin and World Cup finals, while seasonal activations such as Easter have brought families into the precinct for games, entertainment and appearances from the Easter Bunny.
The same thinking extends to social impact. Nation has partnered with TIACS – This Is A Conversation Starter – to provide residents with access to free, confidential mental health counselling and support. Rather than simply introducing the service through resident communications, Nation launched the partnership with a precinct-wide activation designed to make starting that conversation feel accessible and visible.
TIACS staff were on site to speak directly with residents about the support available, while the wider event brought together residents, retailers and the local community through live music, games, a photobooth and activities across the ground plane. Precinct operators also became part of the experience, contributing everything from barber services to barbecues. In doing so, a resident wellbeing initiative also became an opportunity for retailers to engage with new customers and for the wider community to experience the precinct.
These programs are designed to do more than fill an events calendar. They create reasons to visit, encourage residents to discover and support the businesses on their doorstep, give retailers new ways to build customer relationships, and create shared experiences that strengthen the wider community around the precinct.
This approach will continue to evolve across Nation’s growing portfolio. At Precinct 75 in St Peters, the future retail community will sit within a neighbourhood already shaped by artists, makers and hospitality, with IGA Local, IWG/Regus and One Playground adding different reasons to visit throughout the day.
At Erskineville Village, a full-line Coles supermarket and Liquorland will sit alongside 18 retail tenancies and a significant new residential community within an established inner-city neighbourhood.
Each place is different, but the principle remains the same: Understand the people first, then shape the retail, programming and experiences around how they will actually use the place.
Staying involved
What ultimately enables this model is Nation’s long-term position within the precinct. Unlike a traditional development model where ownership or operational involvement may change over time, Nation remains responsible for the community and resident experience.
That creates a different lens on success. The performance of an individual retailer matters, but so does the health of the precinct around it. Successful retailers create better amenities for residents. Engaged residents create a stronger customer base for retailers. Public spaces, events and community programs give the wider neighbourhood more reasons to visit.
This is one of the opportunities that sets the Build-to-Rent model apart.
The landlord is part of the neighbourhood for the long term. Coronation has a vested interest in creating places where residents want to stay, retailers can build strong businesses, and the wider community feels like it belongs.
As Australia’s Build-to-Rent sector matures, the role of the landlord is evolving with it. The opportunity is no longer simply to put apartments above shops. It is to think about residential, retail and community as one connected ecosystem and to stay actively involved in making that ecosystem work.
- This article by Joanna Russell, Head of Retail at Coronation Property is published in the latest issue of SCN magazine
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