Gary Kleyn

TWO major deals in the Perth property arena occurred this week.The first involved a Perth property icon while the other resulted in a major construction firm committing to Perth’s largest leasing deal in five years.

GOLD & Resources subsidiary GRD Kirfield Limited has been awarded the construction of the St Georges and Victoria Apartments development at 2 St Georges Terrace for First Trade Consulting Pty Ltd.

INTERNATIONAL mining comp-any AngloGold is moving its Australasian headquarters from Melbourne to Perth.

OUTGOING Coalition Minister Graham Kierath – the Liberal’s architect of industrial reform – has dismissed Labor plans to reverse many of his decisions, claiming the new government will be hard pressed to change anything.

MORE evidence has emerged that the housing market is emerging from the deep slump in sales activity in the middle of 2000 with the Australian Bureau of Statistics monthly estimate for the number of new home loans rising in December.

CLOUGH Engineering has given the head of its property division a new role in order to better integrate the market activities of its operational business sectors.

PLANS to split the Augusta-Margaret River Shire to create a new Shire of Augusta are going ahead, even though a petition supporting the move was rejected by the Local Government Advisory Board due to a technicality.

WELL-KNOWN town planner Peter Chappell, from Chappell & Lambert, has emerged as one of the owners behind the controversial Canal Rocks Pty Ltd development at Smith Beach near Yallingup.

WHILE traditionally companies have either left their human resource management and recruitment in the domain of agencies or achieved it in house, construction companies Clough Engineering and Hatch Kaiser answer was to join forces to form a joint agen...

SMALL business owners are leaning towards the WA Liberal Party, according to a Business News-commissioned survey by Asset Research.

THE Perth City Council has rejected an application from a Singaporean company to set up an eating house and bar at 356 Murray Street, citing noise concerns as the reason for their decision.

OFFICE workers are getting squeezed into smaller spaces as the availability of commercial space falls and becomes increasingly expensive.

THE WA Labor Party has put a nail in its own coffin with its stance on Industrial Relations.

WA’S business community – and their workers – feel under threat from the Labor Party’s industrial relations policy.

THE next six months will provide a “golden window” of opportunity in the housing cycle for WA home investors, according to Investor Club branch manager Barry Atkins.

PERTH’s office vacancy rate has fallen to the lowest level in more than a decade, according to the latest Property Council Office Market Report released this week.

PERTH recruitment company National Property People, which deals exclusively in the property industry, has extended the scope of its business to include the provision of training and resources.

PREDICTIONS of the Reserve Bank's next move on interest rates has shifted over the past month from a question of when to a question of by how much.

THE consolidation of WA’s mining sector has already had an impact on the corporate travel market with big takeovers resulting in significant accounts changing hands and putting other long-term relationships in doubt.

WA’S tourism industry is set for a boom over the next few years if many of the projects on the drawing board reach fruition.

PETROL service stations offer a good return for the landlord, provided the tenant is one of the big oil companies.

A NEW $850,000 instrument landing system (ILS) in Albany will provide flight operators reliable air travel to the region in all weather.

THE surge in investment in new retail and tourism infrastructure in the Perth city centre over the next two years will result in a surge in retailing in the city centre, according to NSC Corporate director Andrew Campbell.

WA eco-tourism operators will be able to draw on international experience to develop their businesses using a new WA tourism publication.

PERTH advertising agency Vinten Browning have developed a new label and catchy new gold medal stickers to market the Secession white as an everyday drinking wine.

THE trend towards mega shopping centres during the past five years has meant that tenants are vacating many smaller centres in Perth suburbs leaving in their wake derelict, empty shopping centres.

THE drop in building activity and sales activity in the existing housing market has been felt sharply by the self-storage industry.

WA AS a backpacking destination is continuing to gain favour, with growth running 50 per cent higher than the Australian average.

BUSINESS groups are calling for renewed economic reform and are refusing to take sides in what is expected to be a closely contested election.

SMALL shopping centres are leading to their own downfall in some cases by cannibalising their own market.The Eden Hill Village shopping centre, near the corner of Morley Drive and Ivanhoe Street in Eden Hill is a case in point.

SOME of Perth’s most security sensitive tenants, including the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, had their operations shut down for about 24 hours by a mystery power failure.

WHILE indications show that building approvals in most states may have hit rock bottom, in WA the drop appears to be continuing.