‘It’s about local businesses supporting local businesses’: How Belle Property Kingston is lending a hand

If you’ve walked along the Kingston Foreshore in the past week, you probably noticed a new interior styling exhibit at one of the office shopfronts.

Belle Property Kingston has offered up its boardroom space, which has prime frontage of the foreshore, to local Canberra businesses as a display room, free of charge.

“This is about local businesses supporting local businesses … especially during COVID-19,” says Belle Property Kingston co-principal Dan McAlpine, who is spearheading the initiative.

According to Mr McAlpine, the idea first came about when he was FaceTiming a friend “and I showed her what our office at Belle looked like … then we talked about how we could use this space to showcase other Canberra businesses during this downturn”.

“Now that everyone [at Belle] is working from home, the space was empty,” he said.

“Given there’s so much foot traffic down there with people exercising more, walking, riding or grabbing a takeaway coffee nearby, we wanted to showcase other businesses.”

Mr McAlpine and the team at Belle understood the financial hardships some businesses were facing and opted to lease the boardroom at no charge.

“It’s about doing the right thing by each other and we want to make sure that if there’s an opportunity to highlight another business, we’ll do it,” he said.

“We all know there has been a downturn for businesses, generally speaking, whether that be retail businesses or restaurants and cafes alike and we wanted to help.”

The first business being showcased is Canberra property stylist Madame Gazelle.

Kate Gmizic and Kylie Eaton of Madame Gazelle said since the restrictions on open homes and auctions came into effect in March, it had put “a bit of a damper on our business”.

“This time of the year, going into winter, we do tend to get a bit quieter when it comes to styling homes coming on the market but it’s definitely been a lot quieter now than usual,” Ms Gmizic said.

“When Dan reached out to us and asked whether we’d be interested, we thought it was fantastic and jumped at the chance.”

Ms Eaton said the display, which was set up a week ago and was styled as a studio apartment, had piqued a lot of interest among passers-by.

“We’ve had a number of inquiries on our social pages since moving in and, with the help of Belle’s social media presence as well, we’ve captured a very strong online audience,” she said.

Madame Gazelle will use the boardroom until May 14, before landscaping service Manuka Gardens bumps in on May 15. Sports gear shop Straight Line Sports will then use the space from May 25 until the first week of June.

Moving forward, Mr McAlpine has already tabled discussions on continuing to use the boardroom as a display room on a quarterly basis.

“There are all sorts of things that are now in the works because we’re having to think about life differently, we’re having to think about doing businesses differently,” he said.

“But while we have the capacity to do so, we want to make sure we’re supporting local businesses in any way that we can.”