Wollongong Central

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Wollongong Central is a major shopping centre in the Illawarra region, located in the CBD of Wollongong, approximately 90 kilometres south of Sydney. It is operated and managed by Australian property investment company, General Property Trust (GPT). It is of local importance and is used by much of the Illawarra community as a social and shopping centre. It is situated in the west half of Crown Street Mall.

Wollongong Central is made up of two shopping centre buildings, originally individually run but in the late 1990s fused by an overhead walkway: Crown Gateway and Crown Central. At this point the two centres became Wollongong Central. Also, during the early 2000s the Gateway food court was replaced by a medical centre and is now occupied by Allens. The centre currently features a 2-campussed, 4-floored David Jones department store, a 3-floored Myer, Rebel Sport and approximately 150 stores in the centre itself. In addition, there are also around 300 other retail outlets in the adjacent Crown Street Mall, which Wollongong Central is part of.

The centre, including the Gateway building, has three floors. Rebel Sport occupies the underground level along with the once food court containing medical centre area and Allens, which opens up to Burelli Street to the south at ground level but is underground, due to increased height, at Crown Street and is accessed there via escalators. The next storey is the ground floor which contains specialty stores, fashion outlets, restaurants and caf'es. The next level, level two, contains much the same. On all three floors there are department stores, Myer taking up three storeys and David Jones taking up two.

At Christmas, Easter and other festivities the mall is decorated, and flagpoles show banners in the mall below. The food courts are both in the Crown Central building, with only a few caf'es in Gateway remaining.

At present, a planning process for the expansion of the centre has started and a Development Application was lodged during the course of 2006. It was revealed in an early 2007 issue of the Illawarra Mercury that plans for a tramline through the mall were a possibility, though details remain sketchy.

The centre is one of three major shopping centres in the Wollongong area, the other two being Westfield Figtree to the west and Westfield Warrawong to the south.