With 3 shopping centres in Queensland and a management team spread between Sydney and Melbourne, it is important for Fort Street to have local consultants they can rely on - enter Setting Up Shop!

Fort Street engage Setting Up Shop to manage tricky fitouts, for example, food tenancies or tenants who need more help to get their new fitout open.  At Birkdale Fair, several tenants had already lifted their bulkheads and refreshed their fitouts, but many had not.  We worked with the newsagent to guide them through the process, and also with two new operators - a cafe and a dentist.

Challenge: refurbs - how do we minimise disruption?
Solution: project planning and contractor management

Newsagent

When a tenant is carrying out refurbishment works they want to be closed for the briefest time possible so that they don't lose any trade.  Because we're experienced with refurbs we could plan effectively, scheduling works around their opening times with the result that the tenant didn't need to close at all!

It's important to spend your budget where it will deliver the most impact, so we worked out what works should be done and developed the design brief from there.  We also solved a tricky roller door problem so the tenant didn't lose any space for a door cupboard.

Along with pricing, we make sure our contractors understand the expectations and objectives for the work.  This includes things like making sure the tenant can open on time every day and that the shop is neat and tidy after overnight works. 

Cafe

The cafe operator was new to the process and needed a lot of help creating a plan and managing the fitout.  His first floor plan was literally on the floor of the tenancy in chalk!  But we worked closely with him and got him there in the end (just in time for Covid shut downs - but he was a trooper and got going with takeaways until he could have people sitting down in his lovely new space!)

Dentist

A new dentist with two shopfronts - internal and external - posed a few design challenges.  In order to balance the landlord's desire for an activated shopfront with the tenant's desire to maintain privacy for their clients, we spent a lot of time discussing options with all stakeholders.  The outcome was well received all round.