‘Not a concrete wasteland’: Lord Mayor Nick Reece’s retort to The Age’s Melbourne CBD series

February 25, 2026 — 11:45am

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A stroll around Melbourne’s famed Hoddle Grid highlights everything Melburnians love and expect of our city. World-class shopping, the country’s best cafes and restaurants, and a multicultural experience that awakens the senses.

It is certainly not the “concrete wasteland” that recent reporting in The Age would have you believe, “a city crawling out of the long shadow of the coronavirus years”.

Yes, pedestrian foot traffic is still down on some days, and in some places, compared to 2019. Yes, there has been a massive shift in people working from home which has caused a lot of pain for a lot of businesses in the central city.

But here is the kicker – when people visit the city now, they are spending more than ever before. This higher spend-per-visit, together with recent increases in foot traffic, means overall spending in the city is outperforming the pre-pandemic years.

This CBD icon was a mecca for shoppers. Then Melbourne fell out of love

In December, total spending in the city hit a record $1.2  billion. To put it another way, Melbourne just had its best Christmas ever.

Bourke Street Mall is a great case study in the life cycle of a city high street. Once sitting at the top of the retail hierarchy, it slowly slid into the doldrums and stayed there for years. Rents dropped and landlords sold out. Finally, new investors and new retailers moved in – helped along by the City of Melbourne team.

Now the Mall is blossoming again with new stores like Mecca’s global flagship – the best beauty store in the world. Foot traffic in December was up an amazing 37 per cent compared to the previous year.

Across most inner-city retail precincts, weekend foot traffic is now exceeding 2019 levels, reaching up to 110 per cent of pre-pandemic volumes.

On Lygon Street, foot traffic may not have reached pre-pandemic levels, but it’s not the sad and sorry tale you might see reported. As a Carlton local, I reckon a renaissance is under way on the famous strip and it’s not entirely Italian.

The long-suffering south end of Lygon Street has recently had its footpaths paved with bluestone and there’s a new weekend market in Argyle Square. A string of Middle Eastern and Asian restaurants have opened. At the north end of the street a new generation of Italian restaurants, European style bars, and refurbished old favourites are bringing a buzz back that hasn’t been there for years.

Bottom line, the very latest data shows people are now spending more at restaurants in Carlton than 2019.

There were around 1500 more businesses in the City of Melbourne in 2025 compared to the previous year. Melbourne CBD now has the equal-lowest shop vacancy rate of any central city area in Australia at just 5.6 per cent – that follows a 14 per cent increase in shopfront activation in the second half of 2025.

It once attracted 700,000 people in one weekend. Now Lygon Street is in a state of flux

Major events are breaking records. The Australian Open and Australian Grand Prix are delivering their highest attendances in history. Millions of people are filling Melbourne stadiums for global acts like AC/DC, Oasis and Taylor Swift.

Of course there are still serious challenges. The office vacancy rate is far too high at 19 per cent – but this is partly explained by the 100,000 square metres of new office space that opened in the second half of 2025.

City safety remains a major concern, and negative public perceptions about safety is keeping too many visitors away. The war on taggers who vandalise the city is in full swing, but there is still more work to do.

One huge positive is the new Metro Tunnel, delivering an extra 50,000 people a day into the city – it will be a game changer, especially for the five precincts around the new stations.

Are you part of Melbourne’s missing 20 per cent? Check how much foot traffic has dropped

In the past three years, Melbourne has seen a huge wave of new immigration and international student arrivals. Walking through the city on weekends and evenings it has never looked so youthful and multicultural. I personally love this new energy. Others might not.

We are also seeing a surge in international investment and jobs. Sydney successfully secured the headquarters of many American IT companies in the early 2000s. But Melbourne is making the most of its huge Indian diaspora with global Indian IT companies expanding significantly here.

One thing COVID did end was the prospect of the CBD ever returning to being a single-purpose office zone. The way people engage and use the city has changed for good. Planned office developments have been converted into residential. Offices themselves are being redesigned with a focus on drop-in and collaboration spaces.

Office-driven retail is being replaced with everyday services to cater to a higher residential and visitor population. A reset of rents has created short-term pain for landlords but has attracted a new wave of retail and hospitality that is very exciting. The creative economy, events, culture and nightlife is more important than ever. As, too, is Melbourne’s status as a global centre for education and training.

You put that all together and it is a story of major change. The city is reshaping itself around how people actually live and work in 2026. We are not there yet, but there is plenty to look forward to for Marvellous Melbourne.

Nick Reece is Lord Mayor of Melbourne.

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