As Lismore prepared to mark its one-year anniversary of the 28 February natural disaster, an audit of local Lismore CBD business revealed the city was on the road to recovery.
A CBD audit conducted by council’s destination and economy team at the end of January found an occupancy rate of 60 per cent across the inner CBD area, which includes street front and upstairs premises.
“This is great news for our whole community,” Mayor Steve Krieg said.
“The CBD is not just where we shop, it’s where we come together as a community.
“This audit shows promising growth in the number of local businesses and organisations operating in the CBD, compared to the previous post-flood audit conducted in August 2022 which found an occupancy rate of just 38.3 per cent.
“It’s fair to say that we are well on the way to our pre-flood occupation rate of 90.2 per cent, which was recorded at the end of February 2022 audit just prior to the natural disaster.”
Occupation rate improvements across the CBD (indicated by positive percentage change) include:
* 65 per cent increase in overall occupation since August 2022, when an occupation rate of 38 per cent was recorded.
* Shopfront occupation rate of 56 per cent (up 47 per cent from August 2022) and 65 per cent occupation of upstairs premises (up 31 per cent from August 2022).
In January 2023, the team audited 580 street front and upstairs premises (including businesses, organisations, residencies, pop-ups and vacancies – to best available information at the time of audit) around pre-determined central portions of Keen, Molesworth, Woodlark, Conway, Magellan and Carrington Streets.
This is the second CBD audit after the 2022 flood disaster, with previous audits undertaken in August 2022 (post-flood) and February 2022 (immediately prior to floods). The same area of the CBD has been audited by Council staff annually since 2017.
Street-by-street occupation figures for January 2023:
* Keen Street occupancy rate – 67 per cent.
* Molesworth Street occupancy rate – 61 per cent.
* Woodlark Street occupancy rate – 59 per cent.
* Conway Street occupancy rate – 58 per cent.
* Magellan Street occupancy rate – 56 per cent.
* Carrington Street occupancy rate – 51 per cent.
