Freo app launch

FREMANTLE mayor Brad Pettitt is backing a smartphone app that marries up disused properties with clients.

Spacemarket will launch its Why so empty? app today, Saturday April 13, enabling users to tag onto an interactive map disused buildings which they believe could be occupied.

Since 2011, Spacemarket has been pairing up empty buildings with artists and businesses in Perth. Fremantle is littered with unoccupied properties, including the Woolstores, Spotlight on Adelaide Street and the Bond Store at the end of the old traffic bridge.

Adviser Reece Harley says red tape is getting in the way of premises being utilised, including finicky rules about window pane thickness, the height of balustrades and the pitch of staircases.

Dr Pettitt—keen to charge landlords double-rates for leaving shops empty more than a year—is backing the app.

“Fremantle city council is delighted to support Spacemarket’s launch of the #whysoempty? because of its potential to attract creative entrepreneurs and businesses to business districts like Freo,” he says.

“Independent retail, pop up shops and place management are critical components of local and economic community development and, already, our city’s major landlords are planning pop-up shops in conjunction with Spacemarket.”

App-mad Greens WA senator Scott Ludlam is backing Why so empty? which is adapted from the Bike Blackspot app that he developed.

Cr Pettitt and Senator Ludlam will launch the app Saturday at the Westgate Mall/Spotlight building, one of the largest empty shopfronts in Fremantle.

Mr Harley says user comments and photos can be added to an interactive map, viewed from April 13 at http://www.spacemarket.com.au/whysoempty.

by STEPHEN POLLOCK