Nicole Chapman - My job – My day

Nicole is the Centre Manager at Orange City Centre, a position she’s held for almost 5 years and one she thoroughly enjoys. She says no two days are the same and every day brings something new or different, she loves that. It was here that a smile came across her face.

I must admit, she took me a bit by surprise, given she has what I consider a lot of serious responsibility. Nicole has the responsibility for meeting the needs, hopes and expectations of 28 businesses in the Centre and that alone takes some doing, especially while the Centre is in the middle of a major expansion project.

Her job, officially 8.30 – 5 each weekday, also requires her to be on call and involves looking after a range of things including general house-keeping matters like cleaning, security, waste and general maintenance as well as more administrative roles like setting budgets, overseeing operational and marketing matters and liaising with current or potential tenants about leasing or routine business issues. When things go wrong, like say the air conditioning breaks down, there’s water or storm damage or a fire alarm goes off, Nicole must come in and deal with that too.

I asked Nicole what extra challenges she may have had to face during the disruptions caused by the work that’s going on. She said anytime there is major work going on in a Centre like ours, there’s always going to be extra challenges. She said the early delays went on for much longer than expected, and that put extra pressure on us and the shops within the Centre. “The challenge for my team and I has been to do everything we could to manage and minimise the impact, and to support our tenants in every way possible. We’ve tried to do that, and I think we’ve done a good job, given the circumstances” Nicole said.

I asked her what she enjoys most, she said one of the things she’s currently enjoying, is meeting and working with the builders and developers on the current expansion. She’s loves being involved with such a major project and is really excited with the way it’s coming together and although she can’t say too much at this stage, she can’t wait to see how the community reacts to the finished result. I challenged her to get me excited and she said “The redeveloped Centre is due to reopen in November this year in time for Christmas. There’ll be 25 – 30 new shops and I believe people will be very happy with the final outcome. I can’t wait to share the news on retailer announcements very soon. Think about it, our Centre will have around twice as many shops as have now.”  

Having seen the sketches of how the Centre will look when finished, I think Nicole’s enthusiasm is well justified.

To finish our chat, I asked about the crane currently towering over the Centre. Her only comment was “big isn’t it?” It certainly is that Nicole.