CHINATOWN has a new rival, KOREATOWN, according to research just released by Tim Green Commercial.
According to Tim Green of Tim Green Commercial, 'the streets bounded by Bathurst Street, Pitt Street and Liverpool Street has been dubbed 'KOREATOWN' by locals'.
Out of 41 shops that make up the 'KOREATOWN' area, 24 shops or almost 60% were owned by Korean Australians, 5 shops were owned by Japanese Australian and 1 shop owned by Chinese Australians.
According to Tim Green 'after speaking with local real estate agents we found out that students were renting apartments in towers such as Horden Tower, World Tower and Mirramar Tower and overcrowding them with as many as 10 students in 1 apartment. In fact, one unnamed tower has passed a by law giving the building management power to issue immediate eviction notices and $5000 fine to apartments being overcrowded'.
According to the ABS, enrollments in full fee paying courses of overseas students in Australia in the year to October 2007 increased 20% from 2006 to 437,000 and a study in 2006 by the ABS showed that Korea ranked 3rd for the number of students studying in Australia, representing 8% of all foreign students or 25,000 students.
According to various colleges in the Sydney CBD, most of the 25,000 Korean students study in Sydney and at universities and colleges in the city or city fringe.
According to Tim Green 'the predominant types of shops indicate spending habits of the Korean community as there are 6 Korean hair and beauty shops, 7 Korean cafe/restaurants and 3 Korean convenience stores (with 2 more planned further down Pitt Street), hence one could assume the community spend most of their leisure time getting their hair and beauty treatments done, or eating out or shopping. In fact Noble Hairdressing has 2 outlets within 100 metres of each other'.
'Go to any place around the mid city shopping area on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday at 9pm and it is relatively quiet but go to the corner of Pitt and Liverpool Street and you can hardly move because there are so many people' says Tim Green.
As a sign of the times the City Convenience Store on the corner of Liverpool and Pitt Streets recently converted from a standard convenience store to a Korean convenience store. According to Jamal Gebara, owner of City Convenience Store 'at night about 80% of customers are Korean students and Australians of Korean descent, whist during the day they (Koreans) make up 40%. I can only presume that they are studying during the day and go out after classes finish to either work in the area or shop and eat'.
FOR FURTHER DETAILS CONTACT : TIM GREEN 0418 289787
'Tim Green Commercial is Sydney CBD's largest Australian owned commercial real state agency and specializes in leasing, managing and selling of commercial property'
See www.tgc.com.au
