JMLA have focused our efforts around the retrofitting Australia's urban centres toward a more sustainable and communal future. Commencing with research in the early 1980's on the conflicts and competition between 'main street' and 'big box' retail centres, John Mongard developed innovative methodologies for revitalising ailing town centres and for retrofitting 'big box' shopping centres and the dead spaces which they generate around them.

John's work at Cleveland town centre turned this town from having over 50% escape spending in 1989, to a vibrant regional centre with spectacular main street focused growth up to the current year. Similar success occurred in the town of Bundaberg, where John implemented the first regional centre revitalisation to compete against 'big box' shopping centres in Queensland.

At the interface between shopping centre retrofitting and town centre reconnection, the following successes are notable:

• Kelvin Grove Urban Village Centre, Queensland.
• Bayside Village Shopping Centre, Queensland.
• Mooloolaba Structure Plan and Landscape Masterplan, Queensland.
• Coles and Woolworth's Shopping Centre Retrofits, Ulverstone, Tasmania
• Kippa-Ring Village Shopping Centre, Urban Design and Improvements Plan, Redcliffe City, Queensland
• Toowoomba Streetscape Strategy and Linkages, Toowoomba, Queensland
• Shaping Up Project, Queensland
• Strathpine Regional Centre Revitalisation, Queensland
• Shopping Centre Retrofits for the Inala Ipswich Corridor, Queensland