BY REBECCA KRISPIN

Elwood local Sophie Brabenec was living in Los Angeles and pursuing an acting career when COVID-19 hit last year. 

“I was living the life of an artist in LA … hustling to make ends meet between gigs,” she said.

It’s a long way from the “living art” plant shop she opened in Fitzroy Street last month, as part of the Renew Fitzroy Street project. 

This project aims to breathe life back into the troubled commercial strip, where 34 per cent of retail spaces were vacant in the middle of last year. 

It provides temporary spaces in empty retail shops to artists and creative small businesses, while they are being advertised for rent.

“Initially I thought I’d kind of sit COVID out (in LA) and it would all wash over in a month’s time … I was pretty cool, calm and collected,” Ms Brabenec said.

But when California was plunged into state-wide lockdown last March, she started to panic about her health insurance and being so far from family. 

“It was all pretty dramatic and it felt a bit hysterical and because it was all happening so suddenly, no-one knew what was happening.” 

She packed up her life in 10 days and secured a flight back to Australia. 

Ms Brabenec arrived in Melbourne in mid-April 2020, moved into an apartment in Elwood and went straight into the COVID restrictions and lockdowns.

“It was really up and down over those months,” she said.

“It was pretty challenging and to be honest I lost someone really close to me during that period, a family member who took their own life.

“I’m still very much processing that, it was pretty dark.” 

During the “deep dark depths of the lockdown” Ms Brabenec started to think about what she could do to be productive, care for her own mental health and connect to the local community. 

She had always loved gardening with her mum and grandma as a child, and also studied horticulture at school. 

“Plants to me are very therapeutic … (I love) making people feel good, which I can do through plants,” she said. 

In LA one of her side-hustles had been making and selling indoor plants, particularly Staghorn ferns. 

These evoke childhood nostalgia for her, as they were a regular feature on the back fences of Australian backyards as she grew up. 

In the stage 4 restrictions she started making Staghorn wall features and other stylish indoor plants. She sold them locally, by pasting up notices within the five-kilometre radius she was permitted to travel under strict lockdown rules. 

During this time, Ms Brabenec came across the Renew Fitzroy Street project at a local council meeting she attended remotely via Zoom. 

The community initiative is headed by Renew Australia, in partnership with the City of Port Phillip and the Fitzroy Street Business Association (FSBA). 

The project provides rent-free 30-day rolling licences for artists and creators to show and sell their work in vacant shop fronts.  

The council and FSBA are each contributing $75,000 to the project. 

Before COVID sent devastating shockwaves through global economies, Fitzroy Street had already been in decline for many years.

This has been blamed on a range of factors, including rough sleepers, a disadvantaged population, high crime levels, expensive rents and the migration of nightlife venues to the city. 

As the pandemic continues to challenge confidence in the business sector, the once bustling beachside boulevard deteriorated further.

A brief mid-week walk down the street at lunchtime reveals deserted shop fronts littered with rubbish, empty cafe tables and coffee shop windows covered in cobwebs.

According to council figures, commercial retail vacancies in Fitzroy Street stood at 32 per cent in 2019, before even more businesses permanently closed their doors in 2020. 

Vacancies have been creeping up over time. In 2014 the vacancy rate was 18.2 per cent.

In 2018 the council began developing a three-year strategy to shape a better future for the street, including broad community consultation and formation of a local reference group. 

Council then published its Fitzroy Street Place Plan 2019-20, which sets out the details of this strategy. 

The plan states that a typical vacancy rate for a retail commercial strip should range between three to eight per cent. 

As well as declining economic activity and retail vacancies, Fitzroy Street also suffers from “lack of investment in commercial building stock and poor perceptions of community safety and visitation”, according to the plan.

One of the outcomes of the council’s community consultations was the engagement of Renew Australia in January 2019, to assess Fitzroy Street’s suitability for its retail revitalisation model. 

The Renew model was pioneered in Newcastle after the 2008 financial crisis by writer, broadcaster and festival director Marcus Westbury, who grew up there.

The central concept is bringing in small-scale arts and cultural industries to revive inner city areas decimated by post-industrial decline. 

Similar projects have been successfully established in Geelong, Wollongong and a number of other Australian cities, with each project tailored to meet local needs. 

Council is hoping that the Renew Fitzroy Street project will help to return the street to at least some of its previous glory. 

The project launched on March 2, 2021, with seven creators opening their shop fronts on the day, including some shared spaces. 

Port Phillip Mayor Louise Crawford introduced the new business owners and artists at the launch. 

She still holds a deep affection for the street where she worked as a waitress for 14 years, in her youth.

“For a very long time, Fitzroy Street was literally the place to be – exciting, uber trendy, edgy for visitors - yet still much loved and frequented by locals,” she said. 

“A sunny Sunday afternoon guaranteed the street would be pumping.

“And watching the sun set with the palm trees silhouetted and the lights twinkling was what the St Kilda people wrote songs about.

“Fitzroy Street has had some tough times, but we believe there is a real feel of rejuvenation underway.”

Renew Australia CEO Angela Simons was hopeful Fitzroy Street could be returned to its former glory.

“Renew Fitzroy Street has been designed to bring new ideas and businesses to this iconic shopping strip to increase foot traffic and engagement with the area,” she said. 

All of the project partners, as well as local property owners, are hoping that the unusual and artistic shops will create a buzz along the shopping strip that will attract other businesses to the neighbourhood. 

One of the more unique Renew artists is St Kilda local “Mr Macramé”, or Pete, as he is sometimes known.

Pete’s long balayage hair and tattooed arm reflect his love of patterns and textures, which he expresses through his stunning macramé plant hangers, wall hangings and woven dog leashes.

“When COVID hit I was working as a travel agent and I lost my job, and then I lost my job again,” he said. 

Pete has always been interested in crafts, stemming back to many childhood hours spent in a crafting shop owned by his grandparents in the UK. 

“I used to knit scarves for friends and family back in the UK, it was obviously a lot colder back there. And then I discovered macramé,” he said. 

After becoming unemployed in 2020 he decided to start a small-scale macramé crafting business. 

He began making plant hangers, and found that they sold well online and through local shops during the lockdowns. 

“I sold so many plant hangers through COVID because I think that was the boom of indoor plants, indoor office space,” he said. 

After creating from home for several months, Pete started working in a studio.

“I was getting rope everywhere - all around the house - my partner was getting sick of it,” he said. 

From there he was selected with three other artists to open a joint shop in the Renew Fitzroy Street project. 

“I think the project is amazing. It definitely brings a different life to the area, I suppose … The opportunity is massive for us as artists.”

Pete is hoping that his business will grow and that he’ll also be able to give back to the local community. 

He is already planning some free community workshops in the new space, after securing a donation from Industrial Yarns.  

But he also recognises that a lot of work is needed to revitalise the area. 

“If you just look at the moment there are units that are still vacant and there’s no reason for anyone to come down this end, essentially,” he said.

“If there’s no business or footfall, then why would businesses fill the spots?” 

The Victorian Government is trying to remedy this situation, investing significant amounts in St Kilda infrastructure in and around Fitzroy Street.

Along with council, Renew Australia and other local stakeholders, the government aims to reinvigorate one of Melbourne’s most popular areas. 

Prior to COVID, St Kilda was number seven on the 2019 list of Melbourne’s top attractions, with more than 2 million visitors per year according to Business Victoria data.

The Victorian Pride Centre, a $15 million state government project located in Fitzroy Street, is currently under construction and due to open next month.

The Pride Centre will provide a home and community hub for the LGBTIQ+ community.

The government is also investing $50 million into rebuilding St Kilda Pier, with construction due to commence in mid-2021.  

The diverse and eclectic mix of artists, tourists and community groups that these projects will bring to the area are all a part of Fitzroy Street’s character.

This character has always had a dark side. 

The council’s Place Plan describes it as “a place with an underbelly, where difference and expression are highly prized, where music, art, film, design and ideas have created a place that is rough and refined, loud, arty and noisy like no other”.

It is this increasingly visible underbelly that concerns Fitzroy Street local of 12 years “Scotty,” who prefers his surname not be used. 

Scotty maintains concern for the state government-funded initiative in 2020 to house homeless people in St Kilda’s empty hotels and backpacker hostels to protect them from COVID. 

This program, which brought thousands of homeless people to the area, extends until this month. 

“It just makes (Fitzroy Street) far more colourful probably than ever,” Scotty said. 

“We (locals) have been having to be way more on our toes as to what’s been going on … and some of it hasn’t been good.”

During COVID one of his friends was coward punched in the Fitzroy Street 7-Eleven, resulting in a potentially life threatening brain aneurysm.

“Definitely some hairy stuff has happened over this time,” Scotty said.  

As a painter and photographer, he thinks the Renew project is great. But the risks of the current environment worry him. 

“If I wanted to exhibit, security is a concern, because I’ve created a beautiful piece of work. So, for me, would I feel comfortable in putting my art into a (Fitzroy Street) place?

“I guess that would be the first thing I’d be trying to work out,” he said.  

Scotty believes this environment is preventing potential business owners from returning to the street. 

On a Sunday morning in late February there was also a stabbing in the Fitzroy Street Staple Providore & Cafe, which witnesses described as violent and bloody. 

This was two days before the Renew project launch. 

Monash University academic and UNESCO expert on cultural diversity, Dr Xin Gu, acknowledges Renew Fitzroy Street has launched in a challenging context. 

“In the last six months Australian cities have experienced quite dramatic decline in terms of real estate markets and also in terms of creative working spaces in the inner city areas,” she said. 

“Famous Melbourne places like St Kilda and Fitzroy Street have been left empty, and it’s now really challenging for people to maintain these spaces as retail and restaurant areas.”

Post-industrial urban decline usually brings other problems with it, such as homelessness and drug use.

“Every Renew project has to come up with a plan to address some sort of social problem in the area,” Dr Gu said.

In the Fitzroy Street project, all of the prospective artists underwent a selection process to ensure they would complement the broad mix of locals and visitors in the precinct.

This included an interview scenario in which they were approached by homeless people or drug addicts.

If the artists were shocked or threatened by this, they were not selected for the project. 

“It’s about understanding the atmosphere of the area, being able to digest it, and being able to work that into the identity of the business,” Dr Gu said. 

The Renew project aims to embrace Fitzroy Street’s unique character, while building it into a safe, comfortable, active and vibrant street that fosters cultural diversity and creativity.

This initiative is only in its second month, but there are certainly signs of hope. 

According to a council representative, in January 2021 only 12 per cent of ground floor properties were vacant along Fitzroy Street.

Council members believe this indicates a renewed level of confidence in the retail strip.

They credit this to a number of factors, including landlords lowering lease rates, the impending opening of the Pride Centre, and implementation of the Renew Fitzroy Street project.

“There have always been great reasons to visit Fitzroy Street, and now Renew Australia is helping create new reasons to visit,” Cr Crawford said.

“I know that the area has so much potential to delight… that’s why council is supporting this initiative.”

Sophie Brabenec’s life has certainly emerged from the darkness of her COVID year, with the help of the Renew project.

Her Fitzroy Street shop “Calistags Plants” has only been open a few weeks.

“The shop and surrounding life are developing wonderfully,” she said.

“It's been an incredibly exciting time and I'm loving my new plant-filled office.”

This article referenced suicide. If you or anyone you know needs assistance, call: 

Lifeline on 13 11 14

Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636

MensLine Australia on 1300 789 978

Kids Helpline on 1800 551 800