The Giralang shops will be even emptier by the end of next month, as the second last business operating at the location announced plans to move out.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Giralang Medical Centre will merge with the Watson Medial Centre and relocate all services, closing its doors on June 28.
The practice, located behind the abandoned Giralang shopping centre, operates out of a building owned by Territory and Municipal Services, which said it would look for a new tenant. The only other business is a service station on the other side of the complex.
The supermarket at Giralang closed in 2004 and a plan to rebuild the shopping centre stalled after a group of independent supermarket operators challenged Sustainable Development Minister Simon Corbell's use of call-in powers of the proposal in 2011. The final appeal is still before the courts.
A spokesperson for the minister said the medical practice building was outside the redevelopment plan for the shops.
A patient of the Giralang practice, 78-year-old Roy Doyle, said he understood why the doctors would want to merge with the Watson practice, given the state of the surrounding complex.
"It's one big eyesore. There should have been something done before this," he said.
"To let it sit there for so long without anything being done to it, that's the worst of it. That's what turns the people off."
Mr Doyle, who lives in Kaleen, will follow his doctor over to the Watson clinic, but said it was a shame for Giralang residents who were less mobile.
"You feel sorry for the elderly people, the pensioners, things like that. This is going to hurt them, you know, especially if they have to travel to another doctor."
Ross Calvert, a spokesman for the Giralang Residents' Action Group, said the closure highlighted the need for a new shopping centre to breathe life back into the precinct.
"It just looks like a bomb site … People are discouraged from going there, and many wouldn't even know that [the practice] was there," he said. "I can understand why it might make sense for the doctor."
Mr Calvert said while Watson was a seven-minute drive, the bus timetable meant the trip could take significantly longer for some.
Practice principal at Giralang and owner of the Watson Medical Centre Philip Toua acknowledged that the move could be an issue for less mobile patients, but said the practice had contacted community transport services to request assistance.
"We would have loved the shops to have come back and flourished, because everybody knows a practice near the shops. You'll get people coming in and dropping by a practice near the shops," he said.
Dr Toua said the merger, which had more to do with significant renovations of the Watson Medical Centre than it did with the situation at the Giralang shops, would provide patients with better access to doctors and other health services.
"We're still a small practice, we're not a corporate thing but now we've got extra rooms," he said.
Giralang patients will be able to transfer to the Watson clinic from June 1 until June 28.