New York inspires City Lane

Travelling through the city that never sleeps provided the first seeds of inspiration for City Lane developers Rick McLaren and Laurence Lancini.

McLaren, retail leasing and acquisitions manager at the Lancini Group, was living and working in New York after about a decade in the Australian real estate industry, when he recognised a retail concept that could just work in Townsville.

“When I came back to Australia (Laurence and I) were talking about these various concepts that we’d seen overseas and we wanted to do something really different for the Townsville CBD,” he says.

“We wanted something that was a day-to-night precinct which would comprise a mix of services, retail, fashion, food, dining, drinking and entertainment, all in the one location.”

McLaren and Lancini first started throwing around ideas for City Lane in February last year, just after they acquired the old Shaw’s Arcade – which will become City Arcade – and Fashion Place buildings on Flinders St.

While laneways have long been a stalwart of Melbourne’s cafe and fashion culture, they had yet to be attempted on the same scale in the North.

McLaren says he knew Townsville was ready for something different.

“Townsville is a fantastic city, there’s a lot of sophisticated people who travel regularly, there’s high disposable income and very strong demographics,” he says.

“We spoke about a range of different uses (for the space) and we really wanted to tailor the retail offering to what we believed the customer demand was.”

“This whole project is about bringing the community together to really share in the space, to work with one another, for the businesses to thrive off one another.”

“I think there was more demand than people realise.”

McLaren says City Lane and City Arcade will foster Townsville talent by showcasing works by local artists and designers.