From Indaily:
Life finally coming to unloved lanes
Tuesday, 4 December 2012
Melissa Mack
THE long-awaited transformation of Adelaide’s west end laneways is about to take off in earnest, with the State Government finalising plans to rejuvenate Bank Street and the private sector planning apartments, cafes, bars, retail and office space in previously unloved Peel Street.
A new small bar, Clever Little Tailor, will soon open on Peel Street – a quiet lane of mostly empty buildings between Hindley and Currie streets.
Plans are afoot to connect Peel Street with neighbouring Leigh Street, which has surged in popularity following its closure to traffic at the end of July.
Clever Little Tailor is the next project of Coffee Branch’s Josh Baker, whose unique style of business has attracted a diverse and loyal crowd to Leigh Street.
Despite the lacklustre black windows outside, inside the split level space has white-painted brick walls with a sense of potential and energy.
“We will be a small bar, not a wine bar, for an everyday drinker and are just doing some unique tap beer, micro-brewery stuff, really nice wines and classic spirits,” Baker said.
“Good quality, high end drinks, but simple.”
The capacity of Clever Little Tailor will be up to 60 people and Baker is aiming to be open before the festival season next year, building on the sense of community he has developed through Coffee Branch.
“You can go have a drink before dinner or come there for the night or come after dinner; everyone is welcome all the time,” he said.
Despite Baker’s plans falling in line with moves by the government and Adelaide City Council to encourage a new ‘small bar’ culture in Adelaide, he has already encountered some opposition.
Union Hotel owner Piers Schmidt has objected to the bar’s application for a special circumstances licence.
“That type of licence is not appropriate for the venue as they can apply for another kind of licence such as an entertainment licence,” Schmidt said.
“The special circumstances licence is a more valuable and more flexible licence than the hotel licence and so as a general rule hoteliers are against those licences because we have millions invested in our hotels and the licencing is deliberatively restrictive in that regard.”
However, Australian Hotels Association president Ian Horne said that the body had “no concerns” with applications like Clever Little Tailor which fit the Melbourne style hole-in-the-wall type business.
“Our great fear is that when people talk about small bars they mean a capacity of 120 people and we call those taverns, but this one genuinely seems to fit into that criteria which the AHA supports,” Horne said.
“It maximises the effect of available space in a genuine laneway which is not used for anything and they are a boutique experience with an occupancy of less than 100 and are not purporting to be a public bar or tavern.”
Baker has begun his Peel Street venture with the help of the Ginos Group, which owns all the buildings on Leigh Street and has bought the building occupying the north-west sector of Peel Street.
With the exception of arts collective Format, a vintage store and a few other businesses, Peel Street is predominately filled with empty, old buildings and for a long time has been overlooked as a convenient passage between Currie and Hindley streets.
The rise of Leigh Street has changed that, with the buzz from the tiny precinct about to spill over into its neighbour.
George Ginos, and his father Zis, have reluctantly been drawn into the public eye with the success of Leigh Street, after long preferring to get things done quietly rather than talk about ambitions.
“Our developments stem from a passion for buildings and architecture and a desire to see unused or under-developed spaces transformed into areas that suit modern needs,” George Ginos said.
“Having people enjoy the end result of our work makes it all the more worthwhile.”
The empty Ginos-owned Peel Street property is a hive of tradesmen activity, which has already begun to attract “strong interest” from potential tenants.
“People can see the potential in what we are trying to achieve,” Ginos said.
As well as the potential for a future multi-storey apartment, Ginos is hoping to create a similar mix of tenancies to Leigh Street, with first floor office space and ground floor hospitality and retail.
“There will be space for a mix of tenancies with retail and/or hospitality on the ground floor and more open style office accommodation on the first floor,” Ginos said.
“We have tentatively planned for about eight tenancies within the ground floor but we are flexible on this as it’s important to us to create different spaces that meet the needs of prospective tenants.
Another development company, Urban Edge, is in the process of selling Peel Chambers, offering entire floors as a shell as it restores the exterior of the building.
“That doesn’t happen often in Adelaide because we don’t have a lot of older style buildings that lend to that type of development,” realtor Peter Buchan said.
Buchan said two floors had already sold, one for office space and another for a potential apartment use.
The ground floor is also for sale, with the hope of a commercial tenant buying to help bring life to the street level.
After the work by the Ginos Group, the government closed Leigh Street to traffic. The street is in the middle of a sponsored program of events, making it the most talked about precinct in Adelaide.
Ginos’s long-term plan for Peel and Leigh streets is to have the two connected via alleyways or first floor developments to strengthen the precinct feel.
“Our Peel Street project is centred on one building and possible connection to Leigh Street rather than the entire street,” he said.
“We’ll concentrate on getting that building ready and because we think it will benefit the whole area, building owners in the street may become more enthusiastic about their properties.”
Likewise, the government is looking to capitalise on the success of Leigh Street with a new streetscape for Bank Street as part of its long-term strategy to link the Riverbank precinct with the Gouger/Grote street area.
Department of Planning deputy CEO John Hanlon outlined plans for Bank Street, which are likely to be started early next year, in a presentation to the Property Council last week.
“We have to do something better with our public spaces in our city especially,” Hanlon told the forum.
“We haven’t for a lot of reasons really spent time on our public realm and how we break that down to make that work for people.”
The slides of Bank Street show a prettier streetscape with more trees, flower boxes and paved footpaths.
Indaily understands that while the street won’t be closed to traffic, the government will try to assist shops in their presentation to beautify the area. Streetscaping will make it more attractive for pedestrians.
“These linkages that the council and the government are working on to get all the way through to the Central Market and other spaces are going to be very important and a very different way we do business in the city and very important in changing how we look and feel in Adelaide,” Hanlon said.
The effect of Leigh Street and promise of an upgrade to Bank has already seen a Cibo café open on the corner of Bank and Hindley streets, as well as a new Zambreros take-away shop.
Hanlon also pointed to the start of “incubation hubs”, which were in part inspired by a Property Council led trip to Germany, in an attempt to retain youth in SA.
“We visited different incubation and innovation hubs in Europe and interstate, Melbourne and Sydney, and I was amazed that in every one of them there was an Adelaide person in it – if not running it, they were part of them.
“They were our youth, working in Melbourne and Sydney and overseas because we don’t have these hubs here.”
Hanlon said the government was going to set up a city-based innovation hub early in the new year.
“We’ve taken over the lease of a space in the city and we will be starting an innovation hub to try to retain some of the youth in SA and links to the universities in relation to that.”
The Adelaide City Council has already established an “Innovation Lab” with 3D printers which opened in August this year, while entrepreneurial youth in Adelaide have attempted to start their own, including the now defunct Radelaide Ideas Lab.
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