| Forest Hill Chase | |
| Developer: | Pacific Shopping Centres |
| Number Of Stores: | 204 |
| Number Of Anchors: | 7 major 10 minor |
| Floor Area: | 64935m2 |
| Manager: | Haben |
| Owner: | Novion (-2015) Blackstone (2015-2022) Haben |
| Parking: | ~3400 |
| Floors: | 3 |
Forest Hill Chase is a major regional shopping centre located in the eastern suburb of Forest Hill in Melbourne, Australia. Owned and managed by Haben, the centre is among the oldest in Victoria, opening on 30 June 1964 as an outdoor strip shopping centre, before being developed over the years into its current three level indoor form. Currently, Forest Hill Chase contains 200 stores and over 3500 free car parking spaces. The centre has three supermarkets, two discount department stores and some smaller anchor stores. The architecture is distinguished by a roof of polycarbonate construction with a barrel vault design.
Forest Hill opened as a strip mall shopping centre in June 1964, this included the first Safeway (now Woolworths) store in Australia, before gradually growing during the 1970s and 1980s with larger stores, a multi-deck car park adjacent to Canterbury Road, the development of a Woolworths supermarket and an enclosed two-storey building at the southern end of the centre where Big W resided along with Harris Scarfe and Woolworths that also currently resides in that area.
Forest Hill's conversion from a hybrid (strip mall / indoor) centre to a fully indoor site began in June 1987 with the demolition of the strip mall section, and the construction of a three-storey extension to the existing building, which housed major tenants including Coles, Venture, Kmart and Hoyts, and was completed in 1989.[1]
During circa 1997, Harris Scarfe was downsized from its two level form to occupying only level 1, to allow a new Big W store to open in the now vacant space on level 2. An AMF (now Zone Bowling) and children's play centre Run Riot was constructed on Level 3 a couple of years later.
In December 2004, Melbourne businessman Maurice Alter sold the Forest Hill Chase shopping centre to listed retail property trust CFS Gandel, managed by Colonial First State Property, for $214.5 million. The sale was close to being the largest national (Australian) retail property deal of the year and it included property management rights and the potential for redevelopment. At the time of purchase, Colonial First State Property fund manager Bevan Towning ruled out any immediate major redevelopment plans, saying the intention was to change the centre's retailing mix by introducing the same national brands it had at its other shopping centres, Chadstone and Northland. They also wanted to revitalize the centre and give it a "new look".[2]
In the biggest redevelopment of the centre since 1989, levels one and two of the centre were completely refurbished in 2007. Major milestones of the redevelopment program, which started in December 2006, are as follows:
The third level was expanded and refurbished during the second half of 2010, complementing the earlier refurbishment of the other levels of the centre and introducing a number of new tenants. The redeveloped level officially re-opened on 15 December 2010 with some retailers opening earlier or later in the following months.
In 2012, Harris Scarfe returned to the centre and spent more than $2 million redeveloping the store in the area previously occupied by Myer.
The centre also expanded its fresh food market on level one, which included a new Aldi supermarket on top of the Canterbury Road multi deck car park, which caused a small increase in undercover parking. A new refurbished bus zone was also built as a result. (A temporary bus zone was constructed adjacent to Kmart Tyre & Auto during construction).
The glass lift in the food court that travels from the basement car park through to level 3 was replaced, as the existing lift was too small, causing heavy congestion as it became the only fully accessible way to move between levels 2 and 3 after a past level 3 redevelopment. The expanded lift is now operating and carries up to 26 people. New facade and centre entrance treatments were also installed along the Canterbury Road car park frontage and around the Level 2 Best & less centre entry.
In late 2017, the latest renovations started, which were to completely revamp the third floor, and partially renovate the second floor.