Adelaide's CBD retail tightens as café culture underwrites the mall

Adelaide's prime retail core has continued its multi-year tightening trend, with vacancy easing to 9.4 per cent in the 2026 survey, down from 9.6 per cent last year and 10.9 per cent in 2024. This sits in contrast to the CBD office market, where vacancy has moved the opposite way, climbing to 16.3 per cent from a recent low of 15.0 per cent due to supply additions and both government and corporate tenants continue to consolidate footprints. The divergence reinforces a theme now evident across several capitals: a CBD's retail health is no longer a direct read on its office attendance. Adelaide's parking data supports this, with daily casual rates recently climbing 5.2 per cent to $28.97, growth that has occurred even as office vacancy has softened, pointing to weekend and evening visitation increasingly carrying the load that Monday to Friday office workers once did on their own.

The tenant mix confirms where that activation is coming from. Cafés and restaurants remain the single largest category in the survey at 21.9 per cent of tenancies, up materially from 20.0 per cent in 2024 and it is this hospitality base rather than office attendance that appears to be doing the heavy lifting in keeping Adelaide's core active through the week and into the weekend. Clothing and soft goods has eased slightly to 17.0 per cent from 17.7 per cent two years ago but remains the second largest category, still anchored heavily in Rundle Mall. Other personal and household goods retailing, largely jewellery, has also softened from 14.0 per cent to 12.1 per cent, a gradual retreat worth watching. Supermarket and grocery tenancies have grown steadily from 3.4 per cent to 5.7 per cent of the mix with the number of convenience stores continuing rapidly rise.

The street level results show a genuinely two-speed core. Rundle Mall, at 8.3 per cent vacancy, remains the fashion and personal goods destination. Hindley Street, at 10.1 per cent vacancy, functions as Adelaide's dining and nightlife strip. Gawler Place recorded the tightest vacancy of the four precincts at 6.1 per cent, helped by its smaller, more evenly spread tenant base and is a reminder that not every corner of the CBD is participating equally in Adelaide's retail recovery with secondary locations outside of this core showing mixed results.