The District Docklands has spent the past five years reinventing itself around entertainment, dining and mixed-use activation. Jonathan Codman, Precinct Director, The District Docklands, shares the thinking behind the transformation and why entertainment has become the precinct’s new anchor.
Over the past five years, the 10-hectare precinct on the edge of Melbourne’s CBD has undergone a significant transformation, evolving from a predominantly retail-led asset into a mixed-use destination anchored by entertainment.
At the heart of the strategy was a simple observation: consumer behaviour was changing, with discretionary spending increasingly shifting towards experiences.
For Codman, there was also a clear gap in Melbourne’s already rich precinct landscape.
“Melbourne has quite strong and distinctive precincts – sports, arts, theatre, and retail – but one of the things I felt it was missing, was a really strong entertainment precinct.”
Rather than attempting to create a better version of a traditional shopping centre, the team set out to build a destination around entertainment, then layer complementary uses around that core.
Entertainment as the new anchor
The first stage was entertainment, with the precinct deliberately moving beyond the traditional cinema and bowling model to create a diverse mix of experiences designed to appeal to different ages and interests.
The early signs were encouraging. Fever’s Chaos Lab pop-up was initially planned for three months but was extended to almost a year, followed by the Friends Experience. These early successes helped demonstrate the potential for experiential concepts to generate a different kind of visitation.
Today, The District is home to more than 20 entertainment experiences, with almost 15,000 square metres of venue space expected by the end of the year.
The mix spans different demographics and motivations, from ice skating and active recreation to immersive experiences and group entertainment. The strategy has also attracted international operators, including France’s Prison Island, which selected The District as the Australian home for its experiential concept. For Codman, however, entertainment was never intended to operate in isolation.
“From the outset, we made the conscious decision to lead with entertainment as the element that would truly differentiate The District. Around that foundation, we built complementary layers.”
Building the layers
The second stage focused on food and beverage, with the precinct developing a more deliberate hierarchy of dining options designed to capture the different ways visitors use the destination.
Casual dining, quick-service restaurants, takeaway and production kitchens now sit alongside the entertainment offer, helping extend dwell time while also serving the precinct’s growing weekday population.
The District’s third and fourth stages focused on strengthening its everyday convenience and introducing office and education uses into previously underutilised retail space.
Market Lane was repositioned from a predominantly fresh-food marketplace into a broader convenience destination, while education and commercial uses have brought a more consistent daily population into the precinct.
A local school is one example of that evolution. After reaching capacity at its existing campus, the education provider partnered with The District to establish a secondary campus within the precinct, bringing hundreds of students into the site each day.
The result is a destination that operates across multiple rhythms – serving residents, workers and students during the week, while drawing families, tourists and entertainment-led visitors across the weekend.
That diversity has helped strengthen the relationship between the precinct’s different uses.
It has also helped The District navigate some significant challenges.
Navigating disruption
The Melbourne Star observation wheel closed just weeks after Codman commenced at the precinct, while major infrastructure works associated with the West Gate Tunnel project restricted access from a key arterial road for more than two years.
Neither challenge was part of the original plan.
Yet despite the disruption, the team continued to progress the repositioning strategy, opening new venues, leasing space and building visitation. The results are now beginning to show.
Average visitor spend has increased significantly since 2019, while overall precinct revenue has reached its highest level since The District opened in 2008.
The next chapter
The next stage of the strategy is focused on retail.
Rather than simply filling space with more of the same, the retail mix is being reconsidered around the precinct as it exists today – a destination with a much broader audience and a fundamentally different reason for visitation.
At the same time, the surrounding area is undergoing significant urban renewal.
Residential development is increasing the local population, while new hotels are bringing a growing tourism audience within walking distance of the precinct. The result is an increasingly diverse customer base spanning local residents, workers, students, tourists and destination visitors.
Codman points to the number of celebrations held at the precinct as one indicator of the shift in behaviour, with the destination now hosting more than 120 birthday parties across a typical weekend.
For a precinct that once struggled to generate sufficient activity across all of its retail space, it represents a significant change in the role The District plays in the community.
As The District enters its next phase, the precinct’s evolution is far from complete.
Residential development will continue to increase the surrounding population, new entertainment and dining concepts will add to the offer, and the retail mix will continue to evolve around the needs of the destination.
The fundamental proposition, however, remains clear.
Retail may still occupy the largest proportion of the precinct by area, but entertainment has changed the reason people come.
“Retail – particularly the discretionary side – is a leisure activity. To me, the synergies between entertainment and retail are quite obvious.”
For The District Docklands, that synergy has become the foundation for a very different kind of retail destination – one where shopping is no longer the sole reason to visit, but one part of a much broader experience.
- Further reading from SCN magazine – How The District Docklands is redefining destination retail
Add comment