News & Discussion: General CBD Development

[Waewick]

bravo

[crawf]

Not sure what is going on here, but the Reece Plumbing building on Currie Street is in the process of being demolished, with 'Sarah' signage all along the fencing. While the vacant site next to Reece, has had it's for sale sign removed.

Despite being right opposite the Adelaide Remand Centre, this is a huge chunk of prime real estate sitting here. So can anyone shed any light on any of this?

The 'Sarah' website shows nothing.

[Ben]

Not sure what is going on here, but the Reece Plumbing building on Currie Street is in the process of being demolished, with 'Sarah' signage all along the fencing. While the vacant site next to Reece, has had it's for sale sign removed.

Despite being right opposite the Adelaide Remand Centre, this is a huge chunk of prime real estate sitting here. So can anyone shed any light on any of this?

The 'Sarah' website shows nothing.

I noticed that too. Only this app has been lodged 18 months ago, maybe just a renovation.

Type: Application Assessed on Merit
Application Number: DA/287/2010
Lodgement Date: 19/04/2010
Latest Decision: Development Approval Granted
Location: Reece Plumbing Centre, 177 Currie Street, ADELAIDE SA 5000
Description: Internal and external alterations to existing shop/warehouse including signage.

Applicant Name:


SWANBURY PENGLASE ARCHITECTS P/L

[Allkai]

Not sure what is going on here, but the Reece Plumbing building on Currie Street is in the process of being demolished, with 'Sarah' signage all along the fencing. While the vacant site next to Reece, has had it's for sale sign removed.

Despite being right opposite the Adelaide Remand Centre, this is a huge chunk of prime real estate sitting here. So can anyone shed any light on any of this?

The 'Sarah' website shows nothing.

I noticed that too. Only this app has been lodged 18 months ago, maybe just a renovation.

IIRC, the Reece sign on the building or fence said "Apologies, we are closed for refurbishment."

[jk1237]

something about 4-5 levels is being constructed across the road from the Gilbert Street IGA. A mobile crane has been all day lifting big concrete slabs into place. Im guessing its more apartments like what was recently built next to it

[Vee]

I like the colourful, semi-informative (continuous) fence screens erected around a few of the larger developments in the city eg. site of new hospital and the branding on the ex-Clipsal buildings in the Bowden-Brompton TOD site. They help to promote a sense of excitement about the developments, encourage a sense of progress/buzz/vibe that things are happening in our city and give a clue as to what is being constructed on the site. It certainly appeals to me (as one of the few female members of this forum) but maybe it's a gender thing?

I'm not sure if there is a sign (with image not just text) or special screening, of the type mentioned above, indicating what is being developed on the HRMI site on North Terrace or that many locals even know what this will look like when completed. Some may even confuse it with construction of the new hospital. I think it is going to make an awesome difference to this section of North Terrace and provide impetus for further redevelopment on the opposite side.

I think it's important to promote and capture a sense of excitement about our city and the progress being made. It should help as a counter to the negative sentiments which occur at times such as the current 123 Flinders St planning rejection debacle.

[monotonehell]

I like the colourful, semi-informative (continuous) fence screens erected around a few of the larger developments in the city eg. site of new hospital and the branding on the ex-Clipsal buildings in the Bowden-Brompton TOD site. They help to promote a sense of excitement about the developments, encourage a sense of progress/buzz/vibe that things are happening in our city and give a clue as to what is being constructed on the site. It certainly appeals to me (as one of the few female members of this forum) but maybe it's a gender thing?

Stop being sexist.

I agree, blank hoarding doesn't convey anything other than "keep out". It's a communication opportunity lost both to the developer and the city. Tentatively on topic, but somewhat tangential, DisneyWorld in Florida do something interesting when they are constructing or refurbishing a site. They erect scrims the height of the new attraction with a life-sized photo-realistic representation of what will be there. So from a distance it blends into the location. I'm not suggesting this is possible with skyscrapers, but the general concept is the same. It both informs, and distracts from the ugly construction site.

[PeFe]

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/ipad/hear ... 6204702794

THERE are big plans for Adelaide and a new approach to design that could give us something we lack.

WHERE is the heart of Adelaide? What is our Piccadilly Circus or Circular Quay, our Times Square or Paris end? It needs to be more than a landmark. The heart must be a functioning, useful place that says something about the city's cultural essence. Obviously it's not the Mall's Balls, more properly known as Bert Flugelman's Spheres. That's just a meeting place for teens who choose it for convenience. The Mall itself is clearly unfinished business, but more of that later.

In the East End the city starts to get some character. Near the intersection of Grenfell St and East Terrace there are cool little restaurants and whimsical shops. There is meaningful café culture where people meet, eat, work and live. The Stag's blokey half-priced steaks are a few doors from the tiled frontage of the East Terrace Continental and the more formal Botanic Ristorante. Across the road, the lush Botanic Garden beckons.

Once you are on North Terrace, past the messy business of the Royal Adelaide Hospital and across from historic Ayers House, which looks strangely bereft of trees, you start to strike pay dirt. The red brick University of SA Brookman building, once the South Australian School of Mines, signals the start of some real civic flavour. The classic splendour of the Bonython and Elder Halls make way for the South Australian Museum where the lawn at the front - left vacant when the museum ran out of money - is a drawcard for people who use it to meet, read and sit. This could be it. From here to the Art Gallery, the State Library, War Memorial and Government House, Adelaide is a delightfully busy boulevard that is modern and relevant but still steeped in the city's heritage. You are in Adelaide and nowhere else.

But then what? You cross King William St to Parliament House, past the Railway Station and … you grind to a halt. A wasteland of inaccessible North Terrace frontage leads past the Civic Centre and the Riverside Centre offices. There is a carpark, and another carpark, and then nothing. After a long expanse of old rail yards, work has begun on the SA Health and Medical Research Institute. Next to that, a vast acreage spanning the corner into Port Rd is the site for our new 800-bed hospital.

Along the way you may have stumbled through the mess of buildings near the Intercontinental Hotel - catching a lift to get down to the right level - and found what is being touted as Adelaide's new heart, the River Torrens. If so, you were lucky. Like the once pleasant Glenelg seafront that more than a decade ago turned its back on the public by putting up a barricade of high rise, so the city has been closed off from the Torrens by the monoliths on North Terrace. "The current connections between the city and the river are very poor," says Infrastructure Minister Pat Conlon. "North Terrace has turned its back on the river and provided almost a forbidding brick wall to getting through there."

ADELAIDE is at a critical point in its evolution where a number of major projects are happening in a relatively short time. An awful lot is at stake. The success of the trams, whose extension has pumped new blood into the western CBD, seems to have inspired new thinking about Adelaide's possibilities, and new Premier Jay Weatherill wants to push ahead the city's revitalisation. "We all know the great feeling in Adelaide during Festival time, or a big open-air event - joining in with thousands of people, really bringing the city alive," Weatherill said at the end of his first week in office. "That's what we want more often. Not just every couple of years, or even every year, but every week."

So what is happening? A series of major infrastructure projects are concentrated on the western side of the city: the $535 million Adelaide Oval redevelopment is a reality, as is the $2.09 billion Royal Adelaide Hospital and the $250 million Health and Medical Research Institute. On top of that we have a "statement of opportunities", known as the Riverbank Precinct project, which would overhaul the banks of the Torrens and the bleak and windswept Festival Plaza. Also in the mix is what looks like final plans for fixing Victoria Square.

While these developments are taking shape, a new player has emerged whose guiding hand is being felt. The Integrated Design Commission, which sits in the Department of Premier and Cabinet, has no power, only influence. But its role is to oversee major developments, public and private, and to make them answerable to our vision of becoming a medium-density, green and sustainable, bike-riding, restaurant and café, arts and sports loving modern city.

Projects have to demonstrate their adherence to proclaimed targets like compactness and carbon efficiency. The commission is putting flesh on the bones of these ideals. "What we have failed to do in the past is to wrangle outcomes down here consistent with those broad vision statements," says the IDC head Tim Horton. "The broad vision statements are excellent but we just don't have a practice of applying them rigorously."

Horton, the former president of the SA Institute of Architects, has already been making waves. The day after he took the job in July last year he was briefed on the project then known as Riverbank. He was presented with a funding arrangement for the expansion of the Adelaide Convention Centre. "There was little about the riverbank at all, it was just stage one, stage two of the expansion of the Convention Centre," says Horton. "That's fine, but let's not call it Riverbank which implies the public space along the Torrens foreshore."

A week later he had a briefing on the Adelaide Oval. He asked for the master plan the two projects were working to in the context of a State Government commitment to billions of dollars of capital works. "Eight weeks later a document emerged that I haven't quite forgotten, and I have archived, which I think demonstrates very much what we deliver," Horton says. "It was a document that coloured the various land titles and myriad ownerships in the area - which showed how we worked to date. There is the Convention Centre, there's Adelaide Oval, there's the Festival Centre, there's the new hospital - based on a title boundary but not joining up."

The only master plan anyone worked to was the titles for who owned what. Even the new RAH wasn't shown connecting to North Terrace because the brief for the hospital at the time did not include landscaping. In a larger sense, no consideration was being given to how individual capital works projects talked to each or fitted the modern city brief. "We have traditionally funded individual projects but not something that stitches them all together," Horton says. "What we were able to do, and it took four months of very hard lobbying with a number of ministers, was to get support for a master plan of the Riverbank to connect the Adelaide Oval to North Terrace, among other things."

Horton pushed for and got support for the Riverbank Precinct proposal but was annoyed a funding bid was needed. "I was particularly worried by any message that the master plan was a cost. It is in the short term, but it always saves more in the long run," says Horton. "Failing to start with a master plan is a sin of omission. We can't continue to fund projects without a master plan first - the risks are too great. And the Riverbank master plan we now have opens new opportunities not previously thought about."

There must be bureaucrats in the state public service who are hating him already. "Yes, there are some significant issues there," says the apparently mild-mannered Horton. "But we're not there to be overbearing. We're the one that sits alongside agencies, just behind their shoulder, strengthening their arm. We don't lead. It's an important distinction because it allows agencies to have their authority within a certain area but for us to provide advice on better design process."

THE Riverbank Precinct plan is less a statement of fact, more a menu of opportunities that includes multiple blank spaces set aside for unspecified commercial development. The proposed pedestrian thoroughfare from Morphett St to King William St is at least on one level so the unwieldy access from North Terrace would be partially resolved. But there is still no defining link between the Torrens and the city.

Once you get to the river, a $40 million footbridge will accommodate crowds going to the stadium, although the location is still in dispute. The Convention Centre wants it near them, which would bring pedestrian traffic out near the Next Generation gym. A bridge closer to the Festival Centre would take people to what is now the Phil Ridings entrance, near the fountain and the origami boats. "There are five different options," says Conlon. "What we want to do is have as many points of access to the river as possible, including from the east and west ends."

The existing river frontage below the Festival Centre next to Elder Park looks shabby and neglected. There is no café culture of note. But the proposed vision of rows of riverbank eating venues and bars is not universally loved. Adelaide writer Kerryn Goldsworthy, author of the Adelaide book in the recent series on Australian cities, treasures the unfussy riverbank where people meander and picnic. She distrusts the impact of commercial development. "What we will end up with is franchises and icky cafes and corporate greed and people trying to make money out of it," Goldsworthy says. "You don't need to be drunk or caffeinated to enjoy the river. I think it's ridiculous. I wouldn't say that area was daggy or unsophisticated. If your definition of sophistication is more alcohol, what does it say about your general values about a city, or about life really?" She would prefer better management of the facilities that are there, so the existing café is open longer. 'If the one thing that's there is closed half the time, why is there an argument for more?" she says.

There is one notable omission in the Riverbank Precinct plans. With no announcement or explanation, the Rotunda was missing from the plans for Elder Park. There is a push to move it somewhere further along the river. Goldsworthy, whose book features on its cover the Rotunda framed against a moody sky, finds this incomprehensible. "Why would they pick the most beautiful spot in the city, and the one that is most unique to Adelaide, and say, 'we're going to wreck this?' Why would anyone do that, apart from to make money?" says Goldsworthy, who returned to live in Adelaide after two decades away. "It makes no sense to me."

Or me. The reason for the mooted shift - which has not been actively proposed to the public, just omitted from the drawings - is to provide more seating for outdoor events. As someone who was floored by the beauty of the 2006 Adelaide Festival's Il Cielo che Danza (The Dancing Sky) where painted helium spheres drifted across the river and illuminated Elder Park, I can say the Rotunda did not get in the way. If anything, it enhanced the magic for the audience of 15,000 who lined the banks each night. "It's just an option, it's something we proposed to people," says Pat Conlon. "Certainly the Rotunda would be retained one way or another; it's part of the landscape."

Where it might go, Conlon cannot say although it is understood the master plan locates it closer to the Torrens. "I would imagine it would be somewhere in that area," he says. "This isn't a final plan. It's a statement of ideas and opportunities. We would imagine you would want it to remain pretty close to that precinct; people associate that part of the river with it."

Conlon says Adelaide can be too scared of new ideas and consideration should be given to making space for extra concert seating. He doesn't want people to get too het up about it because it may not be moved. But if we don't get het up, the developers will have their way.

A crude reading of the Riverbank plan is that up to $1 billion in private sector investment is being sought for what could be just a real estate sell-off of river frontage with some hoped for community benefits. It is certainly not a civic project. "We are talking to the board of the Intercontinental Hotel later this month," Conlon says. "Where that hotel is now is a tremendous opportunity for them to upgrade ... it's right in the middle of the block and it's a perfect place to create a new access to the river."

Before the look of the city's future landscape is set too much in stone, another project is waiting in the wings. Anthony Steel, the artistic director of five Adelaide Festivals, is leading a push for a stand-alone music concert hall for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. The possible architect is Steel's friend Frank Gehry, the designer of contemporary international icons including the Guggenheim in Bilbao.

Steel, who is deputy chair of the ASO, says the Festival Centre's acoustics are too unfocused for musical performance and the Adelaide Town Hall is so resonant that loud orchestral movements like Mahler blow audiences out of their seats. It is early days but the ASO has adopted a formal policy of pushing for its own concert hall.

And if you were planning a new hall, on for instance the site of the old RAH, why wouldn't you make it iconic? And why wouldn't you ask Gehry to do it? "If you're going to build one, you might as well try and get something worthwhile," says Steel, who knew Gehry in Los Angeles. Steel says Gehry's involvement at this stage is no more than "a twinkle in the eye". "I've spoken to him. I correspond with him from time to time," Steel says. "No one has said anything one way or the other. We can't really talk to him because we don't have any money." But the lobbying is about to begin. Steel says the next step is to take the idea more seriously, to talk more with the government, the Festival Centre and the new Premier who might just decide an iconic Frank Gehry building fits his vision for a revitalised city. "We think it would be rather nice," says Steel.

ONE of the conventional arguments about the redevelopment of Adelaide has focused on the protection of old buildings. This line in the sand may be subtly shifting and Weatherill has already hinted the state's planning laws could become more flexible so buildings are not left empty. Architect Ron Danvers, who modernised the Treasury building, says the heritage restrictions in the CBD are excessive. He calculates that 50 per cent of the southern city is restrained from development in some way. "Heritage is dead, it just hasn't been buried," says Danvers. "We've got far too many buildings that don't need to be protected."

Urban researcher Ianto Ware already has Weatherill's ear. Ware - who says he is the last 31-year-old he knows still living in Adelaide - heads the Renew Adelaide project which negotiates free short-term occupancy with the owners of unused city buildings. Ware's first project was to put the Tuxedo Cat independent arts collective into Electra House, the old telegraph office in King William St. After seasons in Perth, Melbourne and Edinburgh, Tuxedo Cat is back and Ware thinks he has found a new place for them on North Terrace. Renew Adelaide also housed The Reading Room at 153 Hindley St, home to dance classes, chess games and art installations, and two other free spaces at Prospect. Developer Steve Maras has just joined Renew Adelaide's board, much to Ware's surprise. "Why is a property owner going to care about weird little community activation projects and theories about urban renewal?" says Ware. "We thought those guys would be really hard to get in touch and talk to but it's like the opposite."

Ware - who wants to revive the city's "early evening economy" so people like him have somewhere to go after five - says Adelaide is in a progressive frame of mind. "There is a general sense that if you are at all interested in new ways of thinking about cities and you're looking at applying them to a place that wants to change, this is a really good place to be," he says. "Which is the core reason why I'm still in South Australia."

Rundle Mall may be coming out of a bad period. Adelaide Lord Mayor Stephen Yarwood says the council's $60 million plans for it are "transformational", including the idea of spreading the pedestrian-only areas down the adjoining laneways. "Carnaby St in London is a fantastic example of an entire block completely given over to the pedestrian, although if you are a cyclist you can trundle through parts of that," Yarwood says. "We're never going to turn Grenfell St into a pedestrianised area, nor Pulteney St and North Terrace. There will always be a place for cars. But if we can get that right, we can start looking at other places."

At least there will be new pavers and they won't be ugly grey blocks. "Rundle Mall is tired. I think the paving choice was poor," Yarwood says. "We want something timeless that won't crack."

Alongside these big brush strokes, there are quieter influences at work. Horton has a keen eye for what he calls "the spaces in between", like the cooling impact of street trees and canopy cover, and the importance of pathways and laneways that lace a city together. "The road, the footpath, the street tree, the bus stop you wait at every morning, access to wi-fi on the train, how the building meets the street," he says. "These details are often forgotten, left to the market or some unseen hand - one that we don't see often in Adelaide."

Horton's presence in Premier and Cabinet owes itself to the work of US academic Laura Lee, the Thinker in Residence who puts design at the heart of urban planning and development. Horton, whose commission is the envy of Sydney, likes to quote US author, inventor and futurist Buckminster Fuller, who said, "The best way to predict the future is to design it."

At a time of unusual growth, Adelaide has a new and independent guiding hand whose brief is to make it answerable to its own vision for the future. It is at least some cause for comfort. "There is a lot of suspicion and scepticism around plans in Adelaide at the moment,' says Horton, whose cheerfulness is reassuring. "There was a letter to a newspaper the other day asking 'how many plans do we need?' The point is, they are all joining up."

[metro]

that article was a good read

also stumbled across this great video while searching thru youtube, it is a little out of date though and looks like many of the projects never got built

[ml69]

that article was a good read

also stumbled across this great video while searching thru youtube, it is a little out of date though and looks like many of the projects never got built

Sept 2008 ... hmmm that was the start of the GFC. Banks and developers became risk adverse, hence less speculative development. We're still feeling the effects of this culture change now.

Adelaide is actually doing VERY WELL to have so many cranes at a time when many Western countries are economically haemorraging.

[Will]

From the City Messenger:

Outdoor dining launches in Gawler Place

Local News7 Dec 11 @ 10:26am by Alice Higgins


OUTDOOR dining is being unveiled in Gawler Place today (Wednesday, December 7), as part of plans to breathe life into city laneways this summer.

Tables and chairs have been placed in Gawler Place near the canopy in Rundle Mall.

The project is part of a City Council program to roll out a range of pilot projects across the city and North Adelaide until the end of next March.

The initiative aims to slash red tape and empower businesses and property owners, street artists and other groups to come up with their own ideas.

The City Messenger reported in September the council would trial a raft of projects over summer.

Other projects being trialled include closing Rundle St East on Friday nights for buskers, live music and poetry recitals, night markets in Ebenezer Place and deck chairs on North Tce to create an outdoor reading room

[Nathan]

La Waffle and a coffee stand were set up there this morning, along with tables, and some old VW Beetles painted white with trees sticking out of the roof. Unfortunately, the large christmas float under the Gawler St canopy would have blocked a lot of people from seeing that it was there.

Here's a photo of it

photo.JPG (168.95 KiB) Viewed 3423 times

[crawf]

More of this please!

[jk1237]

looked really good as I walked past this morning. They looked like they were also about to set up stuff in James Place too, but didnt hang around to see what

[[Shuz]]

How awesome! Will have to check it out after work.