Four tenancies, one design partner, and a new lifestyle precinct in Melbourne's west. This is how Cocolea's Foundation Design Package takes a bare shell to an approved, buildable, beautifully finished fitout.
The Nut & Grain Store, Shop G-35, Central BLVD. Shop front render by Cocolea.
Central BLVD: the precinct
Central BLVD Shopping and Lifestyle Centre is the redevelopment of the former Central Shopping Centre on the corner of Lake Street and Caroline Springs Boulevard in Caroline Springs. The precinct has been reimagined into five zones: Harvest for fresh food, Renew for beauty and wellness, Eats for food and beverage, Mix for mixed-use and rooftop spaces, and Work for offices and co-working. You can browse the full Central BLVD store directory, read more about the centre, or make a leasing enquiry at Central BLVD, with leasing and centre management handled by Teska Carson.
As one of Central BLVD's design and fitout suppliers, Cocolea has been working alongside the centre and its new tenants from concept to handover. Four tenancies are currently moving through our studio: a gourmet nut and grain store, a tech repair kiosk, a laser and skin clinic, and a boutique hair salon, Creative Hair by Hanh. Each one has a different brand, budget and set of compliance requirements. All four started in the same place, with the Foundation Design Package.
What the Foundation Design Package includes
The Central BLVD Foundation Design Package was created for newly onboarded tenants who need to move quickly from signed lease to approved design. It is a one-off design fee of $2,995 for Level 1 tenancies up to 38 m², and it gives you a complete design vision that is ready to submit to the centre.
It starts with a tailored design concept covering furniture, furnishings, decorative lighting and the shop front, developed around your business and your brand. We then build a curated moodboard and colour palette so the direction is clear before anything is specified. Next comes a materials and finishes schedule that considers every surface, texture and detail in the tenancy, followed by a scaled floor plan and furniture layout, including the shop-front layout. Custom 3D visual renders show your finished space before a single panel is cut. These help you make decisions with confidence and speed up centre approval. Finally, we prepare the centre management submission package, the drawing set that goes to the landlord and centre management for approval.
When you want us to build it too, the Foundation Package extends into a full commercial fitout. That covers building permits, licensed trades, compliance certificates and centre approvals, and it is quoted separately once the design is locked in.
The engagement process, step by step
1. Brief and site measure. We meet on site, measure the shell, photograph existing services and talk through how your customers should feel the moment they walk in. For a retail tenancy that might mean impulse purchases at the counter. For a clinic it is privacy, calm and infection control.
2. Concept, moodboard and palette. Within the first round you see the direction: colours, materials, lighting mood and the key joinery moves. We refine it with you until it feels like your brand.
3. Layout and compliance planning. Scaled plans resolve circulation, clearances, accessibility, services and equipment. Centre design criteria are built in from day one, so feedback rounds stay short.
4. 3D renders and physical samples. Photo-realistic renders are paired with a physical samples board of real laminates, tiles, stone and metals. You approve what you can see and touch, not just what is on a screen.
5. Centre submission. We prepare and lodge the design submission with centre management and respond to every comment in writing until approval is granted.
6. Permits, build and handover (optional extension). For turnkey projects we coordinate the building surveyor and permit, a registered builder and licensed trades, the program of works, insurances and safe work method statements, the centre contractor inductions, and custom joinery and furniture from our own production. The result is a finished store ready to trade.
Tenancy 1: The Nut & Grain Store, Shop G-35
The Nut & Grain Store is a Melbourne specialist in premium nuts, grains, dried fruit, confectionery and gift hampers, hand-packed on site. Their story is about quality you can see, so the design is built around display.
The heart of the store is a 5.1 metre counter run. One bay holds a scoop-your-own nut display of around ten flavours under a 600 mm high clear glass enclosure, so customers can see every variety at eye level. Open niches below show prepacked chocolates. The rounded end of the counter has help-yourself niches for grab-and-go treats while customers wait for their coffee. A warm copper mosaic tile gives the counter the glow of a traditional grocer, and a dedicated signage detail ties the brand to the shop front. You can also shop The Nut & Grain Store online.
Copper mosaic tile selected for the G-35 counter.
Tenancy 2: Melbourne Tech Repairs, Shop G-36
Melbourne Tech Repairs needed a compact, hard-working kiosk for phone and device repairs and accessories in a tenancy of around 31 m². Our design breaks the space into six cabinetry modules: a service counter, a technician workbench, a front kiosk, a return display, corner signage and a durable floor finish. The palette is cool and technical, with soft grey cabinetry, darker grey framing and a bright brand accent. Behind the counter a fluted grey feature wall carries backlit signage.
Behind the finish is the engineering customers never see. The workbench has supplementary under-shelf LED task lighting to reach at least 500 lux for fine repair work, in line with AS/NZS 1680.2.2. A 1,000 mm pedestrian clearance zone is kept clear as the centre requires. The full permit set runs to 14 A3 sheets of plans, reflected ceiling plans, joinery details, trade scopes and finishes schedules.
G-36 renders, joinery and the physical samples board.
Tenancy 3: Love Your Skin by DK, Level 1 Shop L1-20
Love Your Skin by DK is a skin and laser clinic founded by Devinder Kaur (DK), known for honest, results-driven care. Treatments include laser hair removal, HIFU and clinical facials. The new Central BLVD clinic needed to feel like a boutique day spa while meeting health registration requirements.
The tenancy, about 8 by 3.6 metres, is planned as a reception and waiting lounge with two private treatment rooms. Each room has its own hand basin, under-bench fridge, treatment bed and feature mirror. At reception a curved boucle lounge sits beneath a brushed-brass backlit logo, with display shelving for retail skincare. Soft neutrals, warm timber and brass detailing create calm, while finishes and fixtures were selected with council registration and infection-control requirements in mind. Contact Love Your Skin by DK to book at the new clinic.
Meet DK. Devinder Kaur founded Love Your Skin by DK on honest, personalised, non-surgical skin care. Visit loveyourskin.com.au, follow @loveyourskin07 on Instagram, or book a consultation with Love Your Skin by DK.
Our design for the new Central BLVD clinic:
L1-20 renders and the physical samples board.
Tenancy 4: Creative Hair by Hanh, Level 1 Shop L1-09
Our fourth Central BLVD project is Creative Hair by Hanh, a boutique hair salon on Level 1, with the design now approved by the landlord and centre. You can follow the salon on Instagram @creativehairbyhanh. Salons are among the most services-heavy fitouts in any centre: hydraulics for basins, power for every styling station, ventilation, and lighting that renders colour accurately. We coordinated a combined reflected ceiling, lighting, power and hydraulic services plan alongside the floor plan, so the builder, plumber and electrician all work from a single, clash-free set of drawings.
The approved shop front: full-height brushed brass glazing, brass fascia lettering and a view straight through to the styling stations.
The mirror cutting station wall. Three frameless, arched polished-edge mirrors are wall hung with a concealed LED halo behind each, separated by semi-circular four-drawer cabinets and brushed brass shelves. Every mirror size, shelf height, power point and set-out dimension is resolved in the drawing, so the joiner, electrician and builder all work from one approved elevation.
Elevation A, mirror cutting station wall, from the approved drawing set by Cocolea.
The rear joinery. The approved joinery sheet details the three-metre rear run beside the planter bay and the dedicated staff hand wash bay: drawer and door set-out, brushed brass pulls, stone benchtop, undermount basin, bench mixer and the suspended LED mirror, with every finish scheduled and cross-referenced for the joiner, plumber and electrician.
Joinery sheet CHH-14: rear wall, under-bench joinery and hand wash bay, from the approved drawing set by Cocolea.
What Cocolea can do for your project
Across these four tenancies you can see the whole Cocolea offer at work: interior design and branding, compliance-led planning, 3D visualisation, physical samples, centre and council submissions, building permits, trade coordination, and custom joinery and furniture made in our own production. Because the design, documentation and furniture all come from one studio, nothing is lost in translation between the drawings and the finished room.
Whether you have just signed a lease at Central BLVD or you are planning a clinic, salon, café or retail store anywhere in Australia, we would love to help. Explore our medical and wellness fitouts, hospitality fitouts and interior design service, browse our material library, or see our luxury furniture collection for your front-of-house.
Ready to start? Book a consultation, visit our Port Melbourne showroom, or email info@cocolea.com.au. Central BLVD tenants can ask about the Foundation Design Package directly.