Retail Streets

Retail Streets provide a direct connection to diverse street uses such modern retail and hospitality. These connections make them dynamic in nature with various types of social and commercial exchange, but they can also be intimate in scale, varied, busy and active.

Retail Streets provide a slower speed environment to ease the movement of pedestrians and help create vibrancy in the area, making them attractive places, economically prosperous and socially rich.

Retail Streets can have a high intensity of activity and as such are robust and flexible to support the streets activities, servicing and maintenance. They cater for different activities such as window shopping, sitting and relaxing, outdoor dining and are used as
meeting places.

Depending on the type of Retail Street, a variety of transport modes can be accommodated including separated bike lanes and access to public transport, however, pedestrian movement and comfort is a priority with safe, convenient and easy crossing points helping to bring the two sides of the street together to create an integrated experience.

There are two types of Retail Streets in the City of Adelaide: High Activity Retail Street and Local Activity Retail Street. Examples include Rundle Mall and Melbourne Street.

In this section:

Visualisation of a Retail Street
What do Retail Streets look like?
Explore more Street Types

Organised Streets

Integrating with other street elements such as lighting, building frontages or street furniture can provide a more visually intuitive and aesthetic street environment.

Furniture and Materials

Different streets contain different elements such as furniture, lighting, bins and signage. Choosing materials and furniture that reflect the anticipated demands and levels of use for a street, helps reduce clutter and provide consistency in shaping how places are used by people.

Street Design

Streets perform a range of functions including indicating movement speeds and providing welcoming and comfortable environments. The use of trees, continuous footpaths, centre of road parking and crossings can help to design a street for the activities that occur in them and the people who use the street.

Retail Life

The way a street looks is just as important as how it works. Interesting buildings, canopy lighting and a mix of shops can make a street aesthetically pleasing and change the activities and people that use the street.