That’s according to Marcus Westbury, founder of Renew Newcastle – a successful community-driven project designed to fill vacant spaces in Newcastle, NSW.

Launched in 2008, Renew Newcastle has helped developed more than 80 sustainable businesses from scratch, who are now signatories to long-term leases for previously vacant CBD shops.

As Mr Westbury explained, rather than renting the shops cheaply, which affects the overall selling value of the space, Renew Newcastle ‘borrowed’ the shops for free, on the basis the landlord could get the space back eventually, or the business became successful enough to sign a long-term lease.

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“The model we set up was about generating activity in spaces that would otherwise be empty as a means of stimulating longer-term leasing. It’s counter-intuitive, but for lot of reasons it’s easier to borrow space for free, but it depends on the landlord – they need to have some confidence in the idea that the long-term payoff will be worth it,” he said.

Empty spaces were considered an opportunity to experiment as part of Renew Newcastle, rather than a symbol of decline. 

The project was extremely successful, reinvigorating Newcastle’s CBD. An economic report on the project last year said eighty-one properties had been filled by Renew, and an outlay of $200,000 leveraged into $3 million of tangible benefits, including a reversal of the city’s “blight”.

Mr Westbury was guest speaker at the at the IPAA Victoria Regional conference Reimagining Regional Cities in Bendigo on Friday.

Bendigo council last year hired the services of a ‘retail doctor’ to assess the declining sector. 

As part of its 2018-19 budget the state government announced $16 million for a ‘Gov Hub’ building in central Bendigo.

The project will bring 1000 public sector jobs into the heart of the city, including the creation of 100 new positions, and the increased foot traffic is hoped to revitalise areas of the central business district.