Chapel Street the costliest strip

MELBOURNE: South Yarra's Chapel Street has been outed as the most expensive retail strip in the country. A report by real estate group Savills Research found shopkeepers pay an average of between $1400 and $1500 a square metre per site. The rate is in stark contrast with that of surrounding areas, with Toorak Road leasees paying 50 per cent less, averaging between $500 and $900 a square metre.

The closest any of Melbourne's top 10 strips comes to the South Yarra portion of Chapel Street is Burke Road, where rents are between $800 and $1200 per square metre.

The data also showed Melbourne was the high street capital of Australia, which also explained why it had less enclosed retail floorspace per capital than other cities.