UPSTAIRS SHOPS

Hokitika Guardian, 30 April 1926, Page 4

UPSTAIRS SHOPS

X'F.W VENTURES IN SYDNEY. SYDNEY. April 22

Upstairs shops serve to strike yet another new note in Sydney's -.'banging life. The aim is so to equip them as to make them its popular as the shops with their fronts now on the street levels. While Sydney shoppers are somewhat conservative in regard to changes of this sort, the now idea, if it can he popularised, "ill at least be of pecuniary benefit to men who are pivtting, their capital into city business premises, for it stands to reason that if a row of shops, respondent with cnlliaht lighfung and attractive to look at. can he got within the compass of one building, it is likely to be more fr- litabb- than buying up portion of a street at the present extraordinary prices for city properly.

Til first of Hie np-lair- si.in the oily was opened in Pin street a couple of year- ago. They occupied three Hours of-a building partly used for a bank. The .-hops, built and equipped on the most modern lines, faced spacious corridors on each floor. As np-

st.iiic- .-boos have now made Ib.-ir appearance in one or two oilier <pinr(er.s of the city, ii can lie assumed that ihe original venture has proved a success. Now George street is to have its upstairs shops, The measure of success which attends them "ill be watched "itb spe-ial interest by property interests, tor the location of them is not as i,h antageoiis a- the lui.sy shopping

block between King and Market'streets which is the site of Sydney's pioneer upstairs shops. The latest upstairs shops will be opposite Margaret Street, a comparatively quiet thoroughfare nowadays, running down from Church Hill and connecting with George street and with Pitt street, through Hunter street. While, however, it is used to-day nitiinly liy traffic to the inter-state and coastal shipping wharves. Margaret street will be a very busy thoroughfare in a year or two, for it will bo one of the principal underground railway stations. It is safe to assume, therefore, that it is the potential value of this neighbourhood as a shopping centre, rather than its existing value, that lias been responsible for the erection of Sydney's latest upstairs shops in this quarter. The block will have five floor- of modern shops.