Pitt Street Mall, Sydney

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pitt Street Mall, looking south
Pitt Street Mall, looking south
Pitt Street Mall, looking north
Pitt Street Mall, looking north

Pitt Street Mall is the pedestrianised section of Pitt Street in the CBD of Sydney, Australia. It is one block long between Market Street and King Street and is one of Australia's busiest and most cosmopolitan shopping precincts.

Despite its small size, it hosts many flagship chain stores, including Myer, and more than 600 speciality stores within two city blocks. It is Sydney's main shopping street, and floorspace rents are correspondingly the highest in the city, and the eighth highest in the world in terms of city streets.[1]

A number of shopping malls occupy the majority of the space in the Mall, including Westfield Centrepoint, Imperial Arcade, Skygarden, Glasshouse, Mid City Centre, Westfield Sydney Central Plaza and Strand Arcade. In 2005 Westfield took over management of the majority of retail space in the mall through their acquisition of Sydney Central Plaza, Imperial Arcade, and management rights on Skygarden. They have submitted a number of development applications to significantly increase the amount of retail and residential space above the mall and restrict pedestrian traffic between Pitt St and Elizabeth St.

[edit] Free Hugs campaign

The Pitt Street Mall gained fame in 2006 as a result of publicity from the Free Hugs Campaign video, posted on YouTube and garnering over 400,000 views in a week. Much of the footage from the video takes place in the mall.

[edit] References

  1. ^ "The World's Most Expensive Streets 2006", FinFacts, 2006. Retrieved on February 28, 2007.