By Aimee Chanthadavong
The last remaining retail outlet at the new Melbourne InterContinental Hotel has been scooped up by Australia's oldest family-owned chocolate manufacturing retailer Haigh's Chocolates.
The retailer will be joining Grossi Florentino’s latest Italian eatery, the Merchant; Easy Day Spa; popular Melbourne’s café operator Eclipse; and The Cup Cake Bakery.
CBRE senior negotiator Max Cookes, responsible for leasing all five retail tenancies in the project on behalf of Eureka Funds Management, told Retailbiz he wanted to bring a mix of tenancy to complement the five star hotel.
“We’ve created a complimenting mix where each tenant offers a different service. We’ve made sure there is a range of retailers that can cater to different parts of the market place,” he said.
“We’re making sure that no two operators are the same as it’d effectively end up in a price war and we want to avoid that.”
The heritage façade of the building fronting onto Collins Street will be retained and Haigh’s Chocolates will undertake a complete internal refurbishment.
It is the latest outlet for Haigh’s, which already operates 12 retail stores – six in Adelaide, five in Melbourne and one in Sydney.
As the deal has yet to finalised, Haigh’s Chocolates informed Retailbiz at the time of reporting it is did not want to provide any further comments.