The Burwood Plaza Shopping Centre (commonly and formerly officially known as Burwood Plaza) is a regional shopping centre owned by

Holdmark Property Group The Burwood Plaza Shopping Centre (commonly and formerly officially known as Burwood Plaza) is a regional shopping centre owned by Holdmark Property Group. It is located in the suburb of Burwood in Sydney's Inner West. Burwood Plaza is anchored b ...

. It is located in the suburb of Burwood in Sydney's

Inner West The Inner West of Sydney is an area directly west of the Sydney central business district, New South Wales, Australia. The suburbs that make up the Inner West are predominantly located along the southern shore of Port Jackson (Parramatta River) ...

. Burwood Plaza is anchored by a

Woolworths Woolworth, Woolworth's, or Woolworths may refer to: Businesses * F. W. Woolworth Company, the original US-based chain of "five and dime" (5¢ and 10¢) stores * Woolworths Group (United Kingdom), former operator of the Woolworths chain of shops ...

supermarket and also includes a number of East Asian specialty shops due to the large Chinese immigrant presence in the suburb. Due to the lack in investment into the property by Holdmark in preparation for demolition and future redevelopment, Burwood Plaza has become known as one of Australia's few dying shopping centres.

Origins

The site where Burwood Plaza now lies was once the site of Burwood's first theatre which opened in 1910. It was replaced by the Palatial Theatre which opened in 1921 and featured the first Christie pipe organ in a local theatre. The Palatial closed in 1971 and the space was used by the Royal Blind Society, then as a carpet showroom.

History

Burwood Plaza opened in 1978 as a competitor to the neighbouring

Westfield Burwood Westfield Burwood is a large shopping centre in the suburb of Burwood in the Inner West of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Transport The Northern and Inner West & Leppington Line offer frequent train services to Burwood station which ...

shopping centre and was originally anchored by a Waltons department store. In the early 1990s a

Franklins Franklins was an Australian discount supermarket chain selling packaged groceries and perishables throughout New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia. It sold the "No Frills" home brand generic products. In 2011 the chain was ...

Big Fresh replaced the anchor tenant space where the Waltons department store was previously located. This would leave Burwood Plaza without a proper department store. Franklins Big Fresh would soon close in 2001 and was replaced with a Woolworths supermarket, which became the new anchor tenant. The centre has not received any major renovations since its opening in 1978, even before the ownership of Holdmark Property Group. One example of the lack of investment in the property is the outdoor signage, which has not been updated since late 1988, even though the official corporate logo for the centre has been changed multiple times since. The most recent renovation to the exterior of the building is the updated Woolworths supermarket signage following a company-wide rebrand. On 14 November 2015, a small scale

Toys "R" Us Toys "R" Us is an American toy, clothing, and baby product retailer owned by Tru Kids (doing business as Tru Kids Brands) and various others. The company was founded in 1957; its first store was built in April 1948, with its headquarters loc ...

store opened a location on the space of the former

Best & Less Best & Less is an Australian retailer of clothing and household linens. As of 2020, Best&Less has 246 stores as well as an online platform. History Best & Less was founded by Berel Ginges in January 1965, by occupying part of the ground floor of ...

clothing store. Due to company-wide financial issues within Toys "R" Us unrelated to the centre, the Toys "R" Us location closed in August 2018 and the current tenant, Japanese 100-yen shop

Daiso is a large franchise of 100-yen shops founded in Japan. The headquarters are in Higashihiroshima, Hiroshima Prefecture. Daiso has a range of over 100,000 products, of which over 40 percent are imported goods, many of them from China, South Kor ...

soon opened a store on the former location. Burwood Plaza has been in a rapid decline of shoppers since late 2021 due to lack of significant investment into the building in preparation for the redevelopment and the opening of several stores in the neighbouring Westfield Burwood shopping centre which were similar to previous tenants of Burwood Plaza. This has led to tenants removing their presence in the centre, leaving empty tenant spaces. Beginning in 2022, some of the empty tenant spaces were used for

COVID-19 vaccination A COVID19 vaccine is a vaccine intended to provide acquired immunity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2), the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 ( COVID19). Prior to the COVID19 pandemic, an es ...

Acquisition and redevelopment

In November 2014,

Parramatta Parramatta () is a suburb and major Central business district, commercial centre in Greater Western Sydney, located in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately west of the Sydney central business district on the ban ...

-based Holdmark Property Group acquired Burwood Plaza from Centuria Property Funds for a price of around $80 million. With plans for the site to be used to build a commercial complex known as Burwood Place, with a new convenience centered shopping centre. The current centre is expected to close in early 2025. In January 2019, various renders of the development were released to the public, disagreements from the local Burwood community created a small opposition to the redevelopment.

Gallery

File:Railway Parade outside Burwood Plaza - 2009.jpg, View outside of the main entrance File:Burwood Plaza Interior.jpg, Level 1 area near Woolworths Supermarket File:Subway in Burwood Plaza.jpg, Subway franchise on Level 1 File:Burwood Plaza Level 2 (blury).jpg, Level 2 area near Lowes Menswear

References

External links

Burwood Plaza official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Burwood Plaza Shopping Centre, The Shopping centres in Sydney Shopping malls established in 1978 1978 establishments in Australia