STORY: John Grinham, Portfolio General Manager – Retail Design and Delivery, QIC
As shopping centre curation evolves from prescribed standards to shared vision, QIC’s John Grinham reveals how listening to retailers’ stories, embracing conscious restraint, and fostering authentic partnerships is helping brand owners—from local pioneers to global powerhouses—flourish across different markets.
For decades, the Australian retail design paradigm operated under what could be characterised as benevolent paternalism. Shopping centre owners, armed with rigid design guidelines and occasionally overwrought architectural visions, would essentially dictate to tenants how their stores should look. While well-intentioned, this approach often resulted in spaces that privileged form over function, creating beautiful but commercially detached environments.
Today, we are witnessing—and indeed, championing—a shift towards co-creation. The modern retailscape demands more than just aesthetic excellence; it requires spaces that showcase individual brand identities while delivering operational efficiency and commercial success.
Starting with why
Our journey begins with conversation, not constraints—unpacking what makes each business meaningful in their customers’ daily lives. This seemingly simple shift in mindset has transformed how we develop retail and hospitality spaces across the country.
Consider our long standing collaboration with Chris Lucas, one of Australia’s most innovative restaurateurs. Almost a decade ago, we approached Lucas with an opportunity to create something extraordinary within Melbourne’s landmark 80 Collins development. The result—Society—now stands as one of the CBD’s busiest fine diners, complemented by the adjoining Lillian brasserie and neon-lit Yakimono grill. This partnership, built on mutual appreciation for characterful design and culinary excellence, paved the way for an ambitious Canberra debut for Lucas Restaurants in 2024.
Carlotta, a 150-seat venue with Mediterranean-inspired menu, opened at Canberra Centre in October as the first of two planned venues. Working with Mitchell & Eades on design and MPA on fitout, the space features a long marble-topped bar, beautiful green tiling and a Napoli woodfired oven—helping accelerate the capital’s emergence as a gastronomic destination.
Making product the hero
This commitment to listening and learning extends to every aspect of retail design and delivery. Product presentation is fundamental to our strategy—even the most architecturally striking store fails if it does not drive sales through effective merchandising and storytelling. Sydney-based visual merchandising agency Dashing exemplifies this philosophy in its work at QIC centres, transforming Lush stores into compelling sensory journeys, Peter Alexander windows into whimsical brand narratives, and R.M. Williams displays into artisanal showcases of heritage craftsmanship. Such carefully choreographed spaces do not just look beautiful, they consistently deliver stronger sales and deeper customer engagement.
The art of conscious restraint
While some retail concepts demand experiential drama, others call for a lighter touch. Our recent redevelopment of the Hunter & Gatherer food precinct at Pacific Epping in Melbourne’s outer north proves that sometimes less is more. The project involved completely reconfiguring the fresh food offering, bringing together 25 retail partners—more than half of them new to the centre—in a cohesive yet individually distinctive environment.
“Forget everything you’ve been encouraged to do up until now,” was our message to designers who typically expect retail design managers to demand “the next best thing”. Our review process focused on practical considerations: How will the space function on peak trading days? How will surfaces weather constant customer contact? What happens when products fill the space? This approach led designers to strip back their initial concepts, revealing only the essential elements that truly serve each retailer’s needs.
Within weeks of the soft launch, both established partners and new arrivals reported stronger-than-expected trading. The precinct’s new additions are already seeing strong customer engagement in their purposefully pared-back spaces, validating our belief that sometimes the most sophisticated design solution is knowing when to do less.
Nurturing growth at every scale
Our co-creative approach works as well for local entrepreneurs as it does major brands, especially with designers who can balance retail vision with each centre’s unique characteristics and customer profile. The Green Life Clinics story demonstrates this perfectly. Starting with a single location at Robina Town Centre just over a year ago, this pioneering Queensland business—one of the country’s first shopping centre-based dispensaries offering prescribed cannabis medications—has already expanded to multiple sites across our Queensland portfolio.
QIC’s alliance with Grounded Fitouts and The Design Creative has been crucial to this success. The biophilic design balances clinical requirements with natural warmth—living walls and organic materials creating spaces that render alternative medicine both accessible and credible. At a time when online dispensaries face increasing scrutiny, this bricks-and-mortar success proves how thoughtful design can elevate emerging retail categories from novel to normal.
Such collaborative spirit proved equally valuable in bringing cult jewellery brand By Charlotte to its first shopping centre location at Robina Town Centre in September. Having cultivated a devoted following at her Sydney flagship, founder Charlotte Blakeney approached this new frontier with characteristic attention to detail. Working closely with IFL Design’s Rod Clift and Element Shopfitting, we facilitated a fluid design and delivery process that could accommodate the real-time refinements essential for translating boutique retail concepts to new contexts.
Where vision meets value
Dedication to partnership is resource-intensive, of course, often requiring our design and delivery managers to invest significantly more time upfront. However, this early commitment ensures a smoother pre-handover experience and drives long-term tenant satisfaction and renewal rates.
QICs formula is threefold: aesthetic excellence tailored to each centre’s market position; timely, on-budget delivery; and deep understanding of each business’s unique requirements. This combination has earned us enduring relationships with retail’s most innovative brands.
Beauty powerhouse Mecca continues to choose QIC centres for its expansion, recognising our ability to deliver premium environments across metropolitan and regional markets. Global athleisure giant JD Sports has similarly integrated QIC centres into its Australian growth strategy, with impressive results—its Grand Central store in Toowoomba stands out as a regional top performer.
Evolution in motion
As we move through 2025, the retail environment is being reshaped by swift and profound changes in consumer behaviour and technological capability. The boundaries between traditional retail, hospitality and experiential spaces are increasingly fluid. Yet our fundamental principle remains constant: successful retail design must serve both commerce and community, creating spaces that resonate with customers while delivering returns for our partners.
The future of retail design and delivery lies not in imposing a singular vision, but in orchestrating a harmony of voices—retailers, designers and landlords—working in concert to create spaces that truly serve their communities. It is a future we are excited to help shape, one store at a time.