Photographer Ken Duncan rents gallery space on Melbourne's Collins Street

Internationally acclaimed photographer Ken Duncan has secured exhibition space at 500 Collins Street for a flagship art gallery, in hopes of tapping into the strong core retail market in the Melbourne CBD.

The core Melbourne CBD market has a vacancy rate of 2.4% according to a recent Knight Frank retail report, with just 39 out of 1,604 shops recorded vacant in July this year.

His new art gallery will sit opposite the distinctive Venetian Gothic facade of the Rialto Intercontinental Hotel.

“Melburnians are well known for their love of art, and we have many staunch fans here. We believe our clients are going to love this new Collins Street location, and we will launch the new gallery in November with a Meet the Artists weekend,” says Duncan.

The five-year leasing deal was negotiated by CBRE’s Max Cookes and Zelman Ainsworth.

Duncan’s gallery will occupy a 120-square metre spot and will pay an estimated $1,000 per square metre rent per annum.

Ainsworth says Duncan’s new flagship Collins Street gallery will add value to the already established tenancy mix on the western end of Collins Street.

“In Sydney we are near the stock exchange and often the traders come in and sit in front of the prints and pretend they’re in the middle of the outback because I think they are stressed out,” Duncan said in an interview with The Age.

“Our galleries end up like sanctuaries, they come in and go bush. Where we need to be is Collins Street.”

Cookes says CBRE’s retail leasing team had concluded nine of the last 10 retail-leasing deals on Collins Street between King and William streets.

Ainsworth said the increasing level of rents achieved at this end of Collins Street over the past 24 months demonstrated the strong demand from quality retailers wanting to secure a presence in this heritage pocket of Collins Street.

Duncan is famous for his landscape photography and was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia by the Australian government in 2009 for his services to landscape photography.

Duncan has also been honoured by the Photo Imaging Council of Australia with its highest award, The Gold Tripod.

Duncan prefers the panoramic format for images, saying it’s the way we see.

Collins Street will be Duncan’s second Melbourne gallery, with another located in Docklands.

Duncan also has a store in Sydney and one in Erina Heights on the New South Wales central coast.