[COM] Victoria Square Upgrade - $24m

[AtD]

The council has neither the means nor the incentive to do Vic Sq properly. Their budget wouldn't allow the scale of a project the square deserves, and the power structure of the council means it will remain so. The ACC is also under the influence of the Central Market traders lobby would only be happy if it were a multi-story car park. Paint it green and we can pretend it's open space.

This should be a state government project. In the mean time, I suggest the council save their money for the eternally delayed North Tce upgrades.

[Shuz]

Council should really just drop this one; its more of a State Government initiative anyways. North Terrace upgrade would be a better priority.

[Professor]

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

[Prince George]

Mr Vaughan is, of course, the representative of businesses that are clustered much more around Hindley/Rundle Sts than around Victoria Square. He's just doing his job - trying to shake out some extra money for his constituents. The problem is that the Advertiser or Messenger fail to communicate his vested interests and leave him seeming like an independent voice.

Personally, I'm a little relieved because this will avoid what was my nightmare scenario: an overblown misguided mega-project solution that doesn't actually improve matters, but is so expensive and invasive that we're stuck with it for generations. Things like multi-story underground carparks, or sinking the square down a level with an overpass for Grote St, or elaborate structures in the square itself, are all really hard to alter again later if we slap our heads in a few years time and say "What were we thinking?"

As has already been said, the real problems for Vic Square are what's around the square - ie not enough things to give people much reason to be there. But things change over time, albeit slowly (it would help if we'd stop building office-towers, courtrooms, and police stations around there), and it's more important to be ready to change with them. I will take many smaller projects over single larger ones for almost any situation, that model gives better chances to adapt to change.

For now, I think that it's better to have that constraint and have to really ask ourselves what is the absolutely most important thing to do there right now.

[Mants]

i really dont see this as a priority.
in all honesty, i think we should improve our best assets, rather than throwing money at, what is essentially, a roundabout.

rundle mall is the heart of the city. it's surrounded by restaurants, bars, clubs, museum, art gallery, state library, universities, shopping, public spaces, public art and well utilised green space.

how can victoria square really compete on the same level? i think it'll turn into a white elephant honestly.

i too would rather see an hindley/rundle street upgrade

[crawf]

It is a priority, Victoria Square has been neglected for far too long.

Victoria Square could be something special for Adelaide, its smack bang in the law court precinct, surrounded by the $600m City Central project, Central Markets, university campus and 2 5-star hotels (plus a 3rd hotel in the future). The square is right near the Gouger Street entertainment/dining precinct and there is growing number of developments south of Vic Sq.

And to top it off Victoria Square has excellent views of the northern city skyline, one of my favourite angles.

Considering the Adelaide CBD is the economic hub of South Australia, I would like to see the State Government spent more money on improving the city, including allocating money towards a redevelopment of Victoria Square and even Rundle Mall. It shouldn't be all up to the Adelaide City Council to fund majority of all projects.

[Brando]

Don't touch Vic Square at all unless you plan to do something major with it. We have lived with nothing for so long, i would rather it go a little longer and get it right than doing something for the sake of progress.

Harbo and Clr Yarwood, make some noise and get local business and government support and all work together to come to an 'out of this world' proposal that we can all be excited about. Time for the mediocre approvals to be left for another state...

[omada]

Maybe if we didn't view the Vic Square upgrade in such grandiose terms, we could proceed with upgrades in various stages?

The alteration of traffic flows around the square could be a good start. Ie undergrounding Grote Street first, then closing off traffic on at least one side of the square (this could done with temporary structures, making it easy to experiment with the layout). If this is achieved, then the new pedestrian flows associated with the change in traffic conditions could be mapped, and a use for the space could be determined.

I would be happy even with a modest change, if it was just a large space, with minor landscaping, that would be a good start. Better than another 20 years of proposals and idle talk.

[Just build it]

disappointing response from mr vaughan. very defeatist.

Adelaide can do that to a man. I'm guessing you're GenY, so lets see if you're still as positive in 2030 when Vic Sq still looks much the same.

The ACC have been dodging this for decades without ever having the guts to do anything more than slowly ponder and then reject a thousand different concepts while moving small amounts of dirt around and mowing the lawn. I can't see any Mayor ever dumping many millions of ACC dollars into Vic Sq because it has zero political reward. Ratepayers living on East Terrace or in North Adelaide (!) don't really care about Vic Sq, they just want improved services and lower rates. TBH I think it would have minimal effect on business in the CBD too apart from the immediate Sq fringe. I'd still like to see something decent done with it but yeah, like some others here I don't think anything major will ever happen unless it becomes a State/Federal project.

Still, regarding Mr Vaughan, for a man in his position talking to the media he sounds jaded. Otherwise he may be going for the ol' reverse psychology trick.....which never works because everyone else on Earth is already jaded about the ol' reverse psychology trick.

[skyliner]

Maybe a bit late - My suggestion for the square -
Realigne KWS straight through with tram line in it.
Wakefield under as tunnel.
Franklin and Googer straight across as is.
Shut off eastern and western roads along the edges of the square.
Thus, 2 long rectangles, both adjoining the bldgs on east and west side. (Thinking of functionality transport wise, local businesses and size of green space and suitable sized areas for other activities/uses).

Not sure of likelihood with costs - whether cheaper and more effective than other ideas or not.

ADELAIDE - TOWARDS A GREATER CITY SKYLINE

[Shuz]

I'm strongly in favour of that idea also. More pratical.

[jk1237]

not a bad idea Skyliner.

But really, for such an important project, the state government should be footing over half the money for this

[monotonehell]

Maybe a bit late - My suggestion for the square -
Realigne KWS straight through with tram line in it.
Wakefield under as tunnel.
Franklin and Googer straight across as is.
Shut off eastern and western roads along the edges of the square.
Thus, 2 long rectangles, both adjoining the bldgs on east and west side. (Thinking of functionality transport wise, local businesses and size of green space and suitable sized areas for other activities/uses).

Not sure of likelihood with costs - whether cheaper and more effective than other ideas or not.

ADELAIDE - TOWARDS A GREATER CITY SKYLINE

I thought it was agreed back last year that a tunnel was unrealistic due to the long run up required? That's why my first proposal had a 'hump' and my second just ignored the tunnels all together, in favour of a paved kerbless space that could be used for cars most of the time or closed to through traffic when the entire space was to be used for events. This leaves the east and west buildings interfacing directly with the green spaces.

[skyliner]

Not a bad final idea either Mono.

NOTE - dont remember reading your idea and came up with this all by my lonesome. Interesting similarities.

Yours has a distinct advantage in retaining ground level access to all current roads by all associated businesses. (no barrier due to the runups). A solution to this is to have single lane access roads- one each side of Grote/wakefield on the run up leaving two lanes to go through the tunnel. (one each way).This would work only if traffic volume was never a problem - otherwise bottlenecking would occur.

Lastly, I did mention costs as a likely prohibitive aspect but i believe if we want to do something significant with VSQ it will cost and giveinconvenience to do it.

ADELAIDE - TOWARDS A GREATER CITY SKYLINE

[Will]

If the council does not have the funds to do this properly they should not do anything at all. A mediocre outcome is not a suitable solution.

The state's demisemiseptcentennary is coming up in 2011. A redeveloped Victoria Square could be our gift to ourselves.

Furthermore I recommend that as any part of a redevelopment of Victoria Square, consideration is given to increasing the number of people living in close proximity to the square so as to ensure that there is a nucleus of people living in close proximity to provide the vibe required to ensure that any redevelopment is not a white elephant.

For one, the state government could kill a few birds with the one stone by selling the State Administration Centre, Wakefield House and the Education Department to developers with the condition they be converted into apartments.

This would require the state government to move to new accomodation. As such they would live up to their promise of housing all government agencies in 5 star rated office accomodation, but also it would stimulate the economy in a large scale as between these 3 buildings there is easily almost 80 000sqm2 of office space. The state government would thus become the largest tenant seeking accomodation in the Adelaide office market. The state would be able to kick start 3 or 4 office developments by such a move. 3 or 4 office developments would easily inject hundreds of million of dollars into the local economy, whilst at the same time allowing for more than 1000 people to live withing walking distance of the square!