Tenants compare a street shop and a shopping centre tenancy on rent, and assume the fitout will be similar. It rarely is — but the surprise is that the totals often end up close. What changes is where the money is spent.
A centre charges you for compliance and specification. A street shop charges you for remediation and missing services. Compare the two on total delivered cost, not on rate per square metre.
Shopping centre: better infrastructure, higher design standard
A centre tenancy usually arrives with the services already in place — grease trap, exhaust riser, gas, adequate power, amenities. That removes the largest unpredictable costs from the project.
What it adds instead is a design manual. Centres prescribe shopfront profile and finish, signage zones and illumination, ceiling grid and finishes, floor coverings, delivery and after-hours access hours, insurance levels, and approved contractor requirements. Workmanship standards are enforced. The design and documentation load is therefore higher, and non-compliance gets picked up at the centre’s review stage rather than at handover.
There is also the possession window. Centres work to a fixed opening date, and the fitout must complete inside a contracted period with no extension available. That compresses the programme and can force off-site prefabrication and night work, both of which carry a premium.
Street shop: no design manual, but a services backlog
A street shop owned by an individual landlord usually has no design manual, so the design is freer. The trade-off is that the premises frequently fall short on the basics:
| Item | Typical street shop condition | Cost consequence |
|---|---|---|
| Grease trap | Often absent | $30,000 – $40,000 if the use requires one |
| Kitchen exhaust | Often absent, or no viable riser | From $15,000 to over $85,000 depending on discharge route |
| Gas supply | Sometimes unavailable | Electric kitchen, or a supply upgrade |
| Electrical capacity | Frequently inadequate for a commercial kitchen | Supply upgrade |
| Amenities | Often none, or non-compliant | Build new toilets including an accessible WC |
| Shopfront | Frequently non-compliant, no accessible entry or ramp | Full shopfront replacement and access works |
| Make-good from previous tenant | Often incomplete | Demolition and disposal at your cost |
Accessibility applies to both
Accessible entry is not a centre requirement or a street-shop requirement — it applies to all commercial premises. In practice a centre has usually already been brought up to standard, while a street shop frequently has a stepped entry, no ramp and no accessible WC. Those are construction items, not fitout items, and they change the budget.
How to compare two sites properly
- Establish the services position first. Does the site have a grease trap, an exhaust route, gas, adequate power, compliant amenities and accessible entry? Each missing item has a number attached to it.
- Establish the approval path. A change of use or a heritage control moves the project onto the DA route and adds months. See our approvals guide.
- Establish the possession window. A fixed opening date compresses the programme and adds premium labour.
- Add it all up — fitout, services remediation, approval time and holding cost. Then compare.
On that basis the two tenancy types frequently converge. A centre costs more to design and document; a street shop costs more to bring up to standard. Neither is automatically cheaper, and the only way to know is to price the services position before signing.
See our cost bands and programme or send us the address and we will review it.
