Aaron, can you start with a little bit about the July story and how is all started with Vicinity?
AB: I first connected with the owners of July about five years ago when they were still considered a start-up. They had a successful online business but hadn’t yet ventured into a bricks and mortar store.
July is a luxury travel accessories business and befitting with their brand, Vicinity needed to find premium spaces for them to venture into physical retail and grow their brand presence.
We started with a pop up space at Melbourne CBD's home of premium brand retailers, Emporium Melbourne, sitting alongside other high end Australian brands including Gorman, Camilla and Marc, and Bec + Bridge.
A positive period followed which then led the July team to look to expand north to Sydney CBD before COVID disrupted the world.
Fast forward a couple of years and the mix of presenting luggage in a physical space to the premium customers at our Sydney CBD centres remained and July opted for a short term lease at The Galeries to test out the Sydney market.
And how was the pop up received at The Galeries?
AB: July is very much aligned with style, luxury and fashion, and is therefore a great fit for our premium assets. The short term lease at The Galeries was a huge success, so good in fact July couldn’t keep up with the demand and had to keep extra stock offsite to fill sales!
It became clear that they needed more space and something that really brought their brand to life, so we started working with them on plans for a new flagship store at The Galeries, which eventually opened May 2024.