Value

Heritage buildings are rarely quiet. When they sit at the heart of an active retail precinct, they’re rarely simple either. The Model & Moxham Building at Broadway is one of those places; a prominent heritage structure with a long retail history, embedded within a major shopping centre that continues to operate, evolve, and adapt. When plans were developed to upgrade the building and reposition it for contemporary retail use, the challenge was never just about design or construction; it was about how to modernise a heritage building without losing what makes it significant and how to do that while the city moves around it.

The upgrade of the Model & Moxham Building formed part of a broader revitalisation of the Broadway Shopping Centre. The works included major internal reconfiguration, upgraded vertical circulation, and integration with the surrounding centre. Forge Venture Management engaged MBC Group to act as the Accredited / Principal Certifier, supporting the project through the statutory approval and construction process. In projects like this, compliance isn’t a final step, it’s a design and delivery driver. The upgrade sat at the intersection of:

- Heritage conservation requirements
- Contemporary NCC performance expectations
- Fire and life safety upgrades in an existing building
- Accessibility improvements within long-standing structural constraints
- Staged construction inside an operating retail environment

Each decision had downstream implications: for heritage fabric, for safety outcomes, for construction sequencing, and for commercial certainty. Our role was not simply to assess compliance at the end of the process, but to help the project team understand where compliance could shape better outcomes.

We approached the project with a simple principle: clarity early is always cheaper than correction later. Working closely with Forge Venture Management and the consultant team, we focused on:

- Identifying regulatory risk early, before it became embedded in design or construction
- Navigating heritage interfaces with a clear understanding of where flexibility existed and where it didn’t
- Supporting performance-based thinking where prescriptive solutions were constrained by the existing building
- Sequencing inspections and approvals to align with staged construction and live retail operations

This collaborative, forward-looking approach allowed the team to make informed decisions, rather than reactive ones. The upgrade was delivered as a compliant, modernised retail environment that respects the building’s heritage significance while meeting contemporary safety and accessibility expectations.