Thursday 10 April 2014

Traders Meet With David O'Neil


QVMAC Representatives have been involved in discussion with leading international markets consultant, David O’Neil since his arrival on Tuesday. David has been brought to Melbourne by QVM to assist in our considerations of a QVM renewal and he brings with him a wealth of experience including consulting on over 200 historic and new market precincts.

This meeting on Wednesday involved David, and QVMAC Representatives Kha Nguyen, George Milonas, Joe Stolarek, Ivano Guseli and Greg Smith.

We covered many subjects including prominent US markets like Detroit which is a 24 hour market with wholesale activities at night giving way to retail during the day. Pike’s Place Market, which is similar in many respects to QVM, has just undergone a renewal financed by a public subscription model. We talked about UK markets and the Bazaar of Tabriz in Iran which has recently gained UNESCO Heritage Site endorsement.

We talked about global experience on how to mitigate the impact of renewal construction on traders and customers through a range of options including consideration of individual traders needs. We also talked about the danger of turning public retail markets into tourist markets. Tourists are important to many markets around the world. However, it is the inherent community characteristics of markets that attract tourists and changing the balance could be a mistake.  We had a productive discussion about how traders might best organise themselves to achieve a level of professionalism aimed at maximising results for traders.

David O’Neil will be presenting to a larger group of traders on Thursday afternoon and then participating in a tour of Footscray, Prahran, and South Melbourne markets on Friday. We look forward to more productive discussions with this markets expert.