ONH: [Port Adelaide] Newport Quays | $1.2b

[stumpjumper]

Good questions hgih

Isnt the landlord entitled to have their property back at the end of the lease [or more-so if there is no lease] or does the tenants needs somehow over-ride the owners?

Correct. Searles have been on a periodic tenancy - monthly, I believe - from LMC as successor to Marine and Harbors etc for some time, and they have had long notice to quit. I'm not questioning the legality of LMC's action, but the sense of it.

If the question of Searles' environmental impact is in fact a non-issue (which given the type of work done by the boatyard, the precautions it takes, the observed conditions of the water at the boatyard, and the likelihood of pollution by private boat owners having to do their own maintenance at their marina berths, would seem to be the case), and given the other factors like the lack of need by LMC for the land, and the continuing existence of the Navy's facility next to Searles, then you have to question why LMC wants the business to leave its location. That's what I'm questioning. I really don't know the answer to that.

There is also the issue of the amenity the boatyard provides to the marina berth users on Searles' doorstep at Newport Quays, and its contribution to the 'maritime flavour' of the development. On its website, LMC claims to be very concerned about preserving the Port's unique flavour, although their idea of doing this is 'cultural mapping' (ie measurement, drawing, oral history interviews followed by demolition).

'How is the LMC ensuring the Port will retain its maritime heritage?
A Cultural Mapping exercise is currently being undertaken by LMC to ensure that the “working Port” is not forgotten.' - see http://www.lmc.sa.gov.au/theport/home/i ... 2#general3

If the boat yard is profitable why cant they just go and rent another big shed and keep employing their apprentices and keep going?

Searles has been offered space at the LMC Adelaide Marina site a few kilometres down river, and athough LMC has offered some assistance, the costs involved with the move and physical restablishment together with the greatly increased rent do not make the move a proposition for Searles. LMC has offered Searles a space half as large as the present business at 15 times Searles' present rent, and without the yard's current ability to slip large boats (eg 100 tons) and to accommodate Searles' large machinery.

The other Central Basin boatyards - including Porter's, McFarlane's and Central Boatyard, have also found the cost and conditions of relocation too high and have closed for good.

Have they been paying a "peppercorn rent" for the past years and therefore are resisting facing the reality of paying market rent like the majority of businesses?

As stated, Searles has been paying a rent 15 times lower than that asked by LMC for the alternative, 50% smaller and less suitable premises. However, boatyards are a special case in relation to rent. Much of Searles' present site is subject to tidal flooding, an advantage to a slipway, but making the site useless for most other uses. So what is a fair rent? The rents at Marina Adelaide are based on the development alternatives for the land, which include cafes etc.

As noted, none of the other Central Basin boatyards has taken up LMC's offer, and the only yard at Marina Adelaide is part owned by members of the Marina Adelaide development consortium, so whatever rent it is paying is not comparable to the rent being asked for private yards by LMC. To date, no new operator has set up at Marina Adelaide either.

So why have Searles and the other yards been evicted from the Port?

I have heard an LMC employee say that the yards were 'messy' and make the development look bad. On the other hand, several Edgewater unit owners have told me that they enjoy watching the activity at the boatyards and they like the nautical flavour they give to the development.

Perhaps the feeling at the Newport Quays consortium is that the only good building is a new building. If that were the case, you have to wonder whether the Multiplex/Urban Construct executives were the right people to be given the task of redeveloping one of the world's last, and most intact, inner-city Victorian era ports.

Perhaps, in Searle's case, the business has become personal. After all, high end property development is often conducted by, to be polite, swaggering alpha-males with large egos. These guys like to get their way. They don't handle frustration well, and are not above bringing their weight to bear on 'the little guy'.

In their pursuit of financial success and their desire to leave massive reminders of their existence, this business archetype likes to be close to power, hence the traditional closeness of developers and whatever government is in office.

Consider the movement (ie employment) of executives between the government's LMC and the private development partners. Consider the cultivation by the developers of local MP and Treasurer Kevin Foley, and the rumoured $660,000 donation by the consortium to the SA ALP.

Whatever is behind the closure of Adelaide's timber boat industry, with the consequent loss of the state's ability to build and maintain large timber vessels together with the loss a significant number of highly and specifically skilled artisans must be a bad thing.

Considering also the excellent results of redevelopment of nineteenth century ports around the world, it will be interesting to see how our effort is judged in the future.

In addition to most of the various Australian port redevelopments, I have either worked in the redevelopment of or visited as an informed spectator Mystic Seaport in the USA - see http://www.mysticseaport.org/ and on Youtube, 24th St Pier in New York, St Katherine Dock, Greenwich and Gloucester Docks in the UK and various other maritime redevelopments in Europe.

All of these developments have been carefully planned and executed, with the developers' profit being only one of multiple objectives. The results have generally been excellent. The developments have involved a mix of uses, with open spaces, public parking and other facilities, short and long term accommodation, interpretive features etc.

By contrast, it seems that in our case, the various aims and responsibilities of the developers, the state government, the local council and the public servants responsible for urban planning, the environment and heritage conservation have merged into one mindset - 'maximise profit' first and foremost.

I suspect that Searle's has fallen victim, ultimately, to that viewpoint, and that the future will judge the mostly deserted, limited usage, and lack of facilities to draw visitors of the Newport Quays development as the basically residential enclave it is, and will regret the lack of exploitation of the historic old Port as a mecca for visitors, long and short term residents, retail and commercial businesses and maritime activity provided by the unexceptional, single focus development we have allowed to be built.

[Xaragmata]

The Independent Weekly's Searle's Boat Yard slideshow is here:

http://www.independentweekly.com.au/sli ... px?id=6016

[stumpjumper]

Good one, Xaragmata.

'The wooden boat revival is now a big international movement' - Robert Heazlewood, director of the Australian Wooden Boat Festival.

The Wooden Boat Centre in Franklin, Tasmania has a wooden boat school whose graduates are sought after by boatyards all over the world.

I'm not the only person mystified by the SA government's willing blindness in the matter of wooden boatbuilding.

[rhino]

I'm not the only person mystified by the SA government's willing blindness in the matter of wooden boatbuilding.

Maybe it just needs a new home. Goolwa has, only a few weeks ago, held it's bi-ennial Wooden Boat Festival.

[stumpjumper]

A new home would be good, but you need water as well.

Even with water, Goolwa suits shallow draft river boats. Seagoing timber boats need deep water.

[Brando]

No surprises with the following atricle. After having recently been in the area i'm sure it will be a fantastic place, but the next stages must be of much higher calibre. It all just looks to repetitive and fabricated. The design they had proposed with the curved facade over the waters edge was by far the most exciting.

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/stor ... 82,00.html

Western suburb revival 'stagnates'
THE revival of the western suburbs' centrepiece has stagnated and many Port Adelaide locals are adamant the predicted property boom will not reach them for years.

House prices west of the city have risen steadily; 22 of 37 suburbs along the west's transport corridors have recorded an increase during the past year.

But the Port, integral to the "Western Renaissance" forecast by industry leaders last year, has recorded few sales and little activity, despite the planned tramline tipped to spur development.

Toop & Toop managing director Anthony Toop said the property boom forecast for the west was now stalled for up to five years.

"Everything (developments) that we were thinking would occur has been pushed out three to five years, with the exception of the immediate impact that the First Home Owner Boost has had on those affordable suburbs close to the city," he said.

Mr Toop said the stalling of stage two of Newport Quays was a "big blow to momentum of the Port Adelaide area".

However, he remained optimistic of an overall resurgence in the western suburbs.

"In the next three to five years, activity will start to rev up again in the western suburbs," he said.

"Once the rail goes in . . . the global crisis settles, mining turns the corner and defence starts to hit, and then hopefully stage three and four of Newport Quays will proceed, then you hit critical mass and then it gets a life of its own."

A walk down Port Adelaide's two main streets of Commercial Rd and St Vincent St paints a bleak picture.

There are many derelict shopfronts, empty shops for lease and two of its once-thriving hotels are deserted – their windows and doors boarded up.

Adrian Fechner owns three shops along St Vincent St which have been empty for about 12 years.

"I don't think people shop here. I think they go to West Lakes, North Haven or Glenelg because it looks sort of daggy (here)," he said.

"Port Adelaide is moving along slowly – but, I think, way too slowly."

Property Council SA executive director Nathan Paine believed the west would rise soon.

"The reality is we do have strong population growth and we do have an under-supply of dwellings, as it stands now, and the west area of Adelaide is ripe for suitable redevelopment," he said.

[Xaragmata]

I agree with Brando's comment about the next stages needing to be of a higher calibre, but empty / derelict shop fronts have been a
"feature" especially in St Vincent Street for some years, & I assume the two boarded-up hotels are the Globe (was for sale last time I
saw it) and the one in the Central Building [Black Diamond Hotel ], which is to be converted to low cost accommodation, AFAIK.

No shortage of hotels within a two or three minute walk of the Black Diamond Corner...

[stumpjumper]

The time has probably come for someone to state the obvious: the unbalanced Newport Quays development at Port Adelaide is, if not 'failed' then is certainly in serious trouble.

It's not hard to see the cracks in the united front about the development, even if no politician has yet admitted them. When that happens, the Global Financial Crisis will be invoked as a main cause for the trouble, but a case can be made that the development was in trouble well before the GFC came along. With its almost exclusive focus on housing, the development was probably inherently flawed from the start.

As it is, there are claims around that the development's architects, Cox Group, are in dispute over unpaid fees, and that the silent partner financier, the building union's superannuation fund C+Bus is very concerned at the project's financial health. It's not clear, by the way, whether the fact that the building unions' super fund was behind the Multiplex/Urban Construct proposal made that proposal more attractive than others to the state ALP government when their proposal was selected. There is the question of which development consortium members were donors to the ALP and which were not.

Experience elsewhere in the world of the rehabilitation of inner city docklands is now sufficient to speak of 'world best practice' for the process. For some reason, that best practice has not been followed in the case of Port Adelaide.

There was no overall planning to ensure the best future for local businesses and residents, visitors and tourists. The shots were called by industry and the Newport Quays developer.

There was no overall business plan to take into account existing and future patterns of use - of shopping, commuting, people connecting with other destinations etc. The development, fundamentally, was about improved heavy transport connections and a narrowly based residential development on certain harbourside land.

No real attempt was made to enhance the potential of the Port to provide ongoing employment and income as a major tourism destination. Useful buildings were demolished, access closed off, and no provision was made for bus parking, visitor toilets and so on.

The haphazard approach continues. Even though the land may no be needed for years, and even though it has meant the effective closure of Adelaide's timber boatbuilding and repair industry, the government's Land Management Commission has evicted the handful of shipbuilding firms from their sites at Jenkins St, Birkenhead. The businesses went down with full order books and all hands hard at work. Full time jobs were lost through government action, at a time when they're not easy to get.

Further along the Port River, the government is involved in ramping up rents on another successful business - Adelaide Ship Construction - to the extent that its doors too may close.

The Port and the Port River, despite their role in the settlement of Adelaide, their remaining historic structures and the use made in other places of former ports, seem not to figure in the government's plans.

Among the numerous booklets on where to go and what to do in South Australia, there is no booklet on the Port. The South Australian Tourism Commission is not particularly interested in the area.

Meanwhile, the government is gradually closing off public access to over 20kms of the Port River, for both people and boat launching. Once extensive over the 20kms, personal access to the waterfront can now be measured in metres, while boat launching is restricted mainly to fee-charging locations in which the government has an interest. What is happening with the restriction of boat launching facilities is consistent with an attempt to funnel launching towards, for example, the relatively expensive LMC-backed facilities at Marina Adelaide.

The word is that the government's Marina Adelaide partners, builder Scott Salisbury and boat dealer Andrew Craddock are to have exclusive management of the 560 Newport Quays berths, built by the government for the marina developers at a reported cost of $17.5 million. A monopoly is born!

Meanwhile the high, barbed wire topped chain mesh continues to be erected across former waterfront accesses along both sides of the Port River, and the state's once thriving boatnuilding industry reels under assault from the government, its proprietors prevented by court order from speaking to media and the industry's highly skilled and fully employed workers forced onto the dole or interstate.

To get to the bottom of all this, involving as it does the government's own conflicted commercial interests, cabinet ministers, and property industry figures who are close to the government, would probably take at least a Royal Commission. Given the present government's violent objections to any sort of independent commission against corruption in South Australia, such an investigation does not at present seem likely.

My solution? Call an emergency meeting of all interested parties. Discuss what has gone wrong, and what can be done to fix the situation. The likelihood of this happening? ALmost zero, judging by my ring-a-round this morning, looking for basic information: Premier's Office - not interested, no responsibility. Minister for Transport Energy and Infrastructure, who has responsibility for marine matters? No. Try the local member (the treasurer, Kevin Foley). Not us. You need Transport Energy and Infrastructure...

[yipiyiyo]

Miss-information is unproductive
1/ Marina Adelaide is not managing the Newport Quays Marinas. Any decision on who manages is a matter for the owners and body corporate group.
2/ I find it very hard to believe stumpjumpers comments about the Jenkins Street shipbuilders. I do not know of any business that would close with full order books unless there was another underlying issue. Certainly relocation would not be an issue for a vibrant profitable business.
3/ Last month a king tide flooded the boat yards. Imagine the uproar and litigation if worksafeSA had been called in after a workers comp accident caused by the flooding.

[stumpjumper]

*Post deleted due to sensitive and confidential information shared*

[stumpjumper]

Everything in my post is in the public realm. I included the mobile number of the Marina Adelaide manager, copied from a public website, in support of my claim that Marina Adelaide now manages the 560 built or proposed Newport Quays marina berths.

I now repost, answering each of yipiyiyo's points, without mentioning any names or mobile numbers or anything else that could, or should be considered sensitive and confidential.

I appreciate that there is no immediate moderation on these pages, and that there is an issue with confidential information.

I have never posted here anything which I did not believe to be accurate, and I took exception to yipiyiyo's claim that my statement about the management of the Newport Quays was 'miss-information', ie incorrect, which it wasn't according to what I had been told by the Marina Adelaide manager.

As to the trading position of the boat yards at the time of their forced closure by the SA government's LMC, I suggest that yipiyiyo go to the Port, ask around and make up his or her own mind.

As to the tides, the boat yards have been flooding like that for the last 170 years, and were well-adapted to cope with it.

[yipiyiyo]

Perhaps you need to do some more research to identify manages the existing Newport Quays marinas?
You did not anwser my question re WorksafeSA?

[stumpjumper]

my claim that Marina Adelaide now manages the 560 built or proposed Newport Quays marina berths.

- my post

Proposed capacity of wet and dry berths exceeding 500 vessels, 550 more berths nearby

- Marina Adelaide's current site

Assuming that Marina Adelaide would not advertise a competitor's product to its own disadvantage, and bearing in mind the information given me by Marina Adelaide's manager, it appears that if Marina Adelaide does not have the principal contract to deal with the Newport Quays berths, then they are at least able to deal with them, perhaps on a shared commission basis. I have done no further research.

Imagine the uproar and litigation if worksafeSA had been called in after a workers comp accident caused by the flooding.

I agree. The conditions at Searles and its neighbouring boatyards were probably below the standards required by SafeWorkSA. However, as I understand it, LMC's requirement for the businesses to vacate was not conditional on any upgrade of work practices or conditions, nor were work conditions cited in the request to vacate. The order was based on the termination of the periodic tenancy and was absolute.

To return to my original concern, what was the rationale for the order for the yards to cease business? Was it an objection to the aesthetics of the boatyards, or to pollution? If the land was urgently required, why is the RAN still at their site between the former boatyards?

I'm not suggesting any dark conspiracy - just looking for an answer.

[yipiyiyo]

Hi Stumpjumper,
Re Marina Adelaide- just one phone call to Urban construct will reveal who manages the existing marinas at New Port Keys.
Re the boatyards- Like you, I loved the vision and aesthetic of the old boat yards. Some of my wifes best photographs taken in Port Adelaide are of the old boatyards. However, the point I was trying to make was that in todays requirement for sake workplaces, I suspect that the boat yards were extremely vulnerable to litigation against its occupants. Perhaps this may have been one of the underlying considerations.

[stumpjumper]

I appreciate both your points, yipiyiyo

Re Marina Adelaide- just one phone call to Urban construct will reveal who manages the existing marinas at New Port Keys.

I haven't made that call. I imagine that even if UG has the agency for the existing Newport Quays berths, they are also willing to work with Marina Adelaide should MA come up with a customer for a NQ berth, especially since MA is an LMC sponsored operation. MA's statement to me that they could lease someone a NQ berth, and their promotion of NQ berths on the MA website, indicate that an arrangement exists between UC or whomever as principal agent for the NQ berths and MA as an 'agent in conjunction'.

he vision and aesthetic of the old boat yards.

one of the underlying considerations.

What I was saying is that as far as I know, the stated reasons for Searles to quit the Jenkins St premises were limited to the termination of the tenancy agreement. Issues of compliance, risk and so on may have been implied, but they were not the reasons stated in the notice to quit, nor was Searles' notice to quit able to be set aside by Searles' complying in time with any order from WorkSafe SA or anyone else as I understand it.

For what it's worth, I thought the yards added interest to the Port. I'm not convinced that the yards posed a significant environmental risk to the area, especially given the likelihood of boat-owners doing repairs and maintenance at their berths once the option of slipping nearby was lost.

My question still stands - why the haste?