Centrepoint Mall (Melbourne)

Centrepoint Mall is a shopping centre located in the Australian city of Melbourne, Victoria. Situated between Bourke and Little Collins Street, it opened in 1979 with over 100 tenants.

Centrepoint Mall

Location	Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Address	283-297 Bourke Street
Opening date	9 October 1979 (1979-10-09)
Developer	Maurice Alter Paul Fayman
Owner	Centrepoint Freeholds (1979–88)
Architect	R. Barnard-Brown & Associates (1977–80)
No. of stores and services	100+

Centrepoint now operates at a much smaller capacity, with much of its original retail and office space sitting under-utilised. It is largely considered by locals to be a dead mall.

A large Priceline Pharmacy store currently occupies the former second floor mall, and several smaller speciality stores continue to operate along the frontage to Bourke and Little Collins Streets.

History

Developer Maurice Alter at Centrepoint

Background

In the early 1970s, Melbourne-based property investment group Hanover Holdings commenced the strategic acquisition of several adjoining sites in the heart of Melbourne's retail precinct, with the intention of undertaking a major redevelopment. The company first purchased the Eureka Stockade Hotel at 287–297 Bourke Street, along with the adjacent Mason's Building on Sugden Place.^[1]

Over the following two years, Hanover also acquired the neighbouring Berkowitz and Union Building Society buildings, which fronted Little Collins Street. These properties occupied a prominent site between Bourke and Little Collins streets, diagonally opposite the Myer Emporium, one of Melbourne's most important retail landmarks.^[2]

Following the acquisitions, the buildings were leased back to their previous owners for a period of five years, providing Hanover with sufficient time to plan and coordinate the proposed redevelopment."^[2] Following a major downturn in company profits, Hanover shifted its primary investment focus from retail sites to residential development.^[3]

Despite these adjustments, the company was later privatised and eventually dissolved in 1979. However, principal directors Maurice Alter and Paul Fayman retained ownership of the Bourke Street and Little Collins Street properties through a holding structure called Hanover Freeholds. After Hanover broke up, this entity evolved into Centrepoint Freeholds, which assumed responsibility for the planning and development of the retail complex that would become Centrepoint Mall.^[4]

Development

Advertisement for Centrepoint Mall

Plans for the highly-anticipated redevelopment were initiated in early 1977, when developer Alter and Fayman commissioned architect Ray Barnard-Brown and his firm to design a large-scale indoor shopping centre for the site.^[5] Barnard-Brown had previously been contracted by Hanover to design their Dandenong Hub Arcade, the Vermont South Shopping Centre and various skyscrapers in Melbourne and Southbank.

The proposed $32m million project (about $200m in 2025) was launched by the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, Irvin Rockman, as the largest and most expensive retail development in Melbourne's central business district in over half a century.^[4] Rockman, who was good friends with developer Alter and Fayman, promoted Centrepoint as part of his "Get people back into the city" campaign.^[6]

Upon completion, Centrepoint featured over 70 retail outlets and a pedestrian arcade linking Bourke and Little Collins streets. It also had a basement-level food court, a large self-service cafeteria on the second level and several floors of specialty retail stores. Office suites and the district headquarters of Qantas and Medibank were located on buildings upper levels alongside the College of Hairdressing & Beauty Culture and Chalmers Business College.^[5]

Architectural features included a prominent 10-metre illuminated sign above the Bourke Street entrance and a large chandelier suspended across three storeys. This could be raised, lowered, rotated, or dimmed to create various visual effects. In addition, an electronic signboard composed of over 3,000 lightbulbs was installed to broadcast advertisements and international news.^[4] A 300-seat Pancake Parlour was located in the Basement Food Court alongside The Reject Shop.^[7]

Opening and public reception

Centrepoint Mall was officially opened on 9 October 1979. The opening ceremony was attended by over 450 guests, including Premier of Victoria Rupert Hamer, who described the development as "a most attractive major new central business district focal point."^[8]

Architect Norman Day publicly criticised Centrepoint's design, claiming that "Everything in the building has been patterned so that there is a definite movement of colour and shape contributing to an architecture of anxiety."^[9] Another journalist labelled Centrepoint a "monument to the grottier aspects of our consumer society". Peter Axup, who worked on the project, published an article defending the design claiming .^[10]

The centre's reputation suffered in 1981, after a Federal Court judge found that the development company, Centrepoint Freeholds, had contravened the Trade Practises Act by engaging in misleading conduct to induce a tenant to take up shop leases in the mall. In his judgement, Justice Northrop said that the leasing brochure was misleading, claiming: "One of the more striking effects of the mall is the confusion cause by the walkways, both level and sloping, the escalators, stairs and corners. It is easy to become disorientated and confused, and it is easy to become lost as in a maze".^[11]

Demise and future

Although the shopping centre was relatively popular when it first opened, patronage declined significantly after the nearby Melbourne Central Shopping Centre opened in late 1991, followed by the opening of Emporium Melbourne in 2014. The most severe blow to Centrepoint came during the two years of pandemic lockdowns, which drove shoppers and city workers out of the CBD, leading to a sharp decline in foot traffic—the primary source of income for retailers. In 2022, Centrepoint indicated that a major overhaul of the building was being considered as a future option. As of June 2025, the Centrepoint building remains open, with Priceline Pharmacy occupying most of the original indoor mall area. The remaining areas are closed to the public.^[12]