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Revamp planned for lane off North Terrace
ABC News Online, 7 December 2010

Adelaide City Council is making plans to turn a run-down city lane into an entertainment precinct.

It wants to model Bank Street, which runs between North Terrace with Hindley Street, on the success of nearby Leigh Street, which includes a mix of eateries and shops.

Deputy Lord Mayor David Plumridge said work was still about a year off.

"A major planning process to go through the Riverbank masterplan and that will address the riverfront itself and linkages back to the city and that will include Bank Street, so until that plan has been looked at and decided on and consulted on we really can't move on Bank Street," he said.

Adelaide City Council a 'progressive body', says Lord Mayor Stephen Yarwood
Maria Moscaritolo, The Advertiser, 7 December 2010
LORD Mayor Stephen Yarwood wants to reassure businesses that the newly-elected city council is a progressive body.

Mr Yarwood said if Adelaide is to compete globally it has to position itself as a niche "smart city" which brings together its strengths in the arts, education and information economy.

While former councils have been tainted as anti-development, he would be happy to see more residential development and even some iconic buildings of "40 or 50 storeys".

"Ultimately we have a progressive council that wants to get outcomes," he says.

"I think this council should be pro quality and integrated design. This council is not anti-development; there is no-one on this council that is anti-development ... tell me a great city in the world that hasn't embraced its heritage as a strategic economic asset and then built great buildings in and around it."

While he did not commit to cutting much-hated red tape for small business, he said he wants to change Adelaide City Council culture to be more customer and outcome focussed.

He is enthusiastic about creating more outdoor dining, and clearing some of the regulatory hurdles that prevent restaurants and cafes from expanding their footprint.

"One of my really strong pushes is going to be turning (restrictions) around so council is actually asking small businesses to have outdoor dining rather than making it difficult," he says.

As part of this, he wants to develop a strategy to bring together traders on each main street - such as Hindley, Gouger and Hutt streets - under one banner to ensure appealing street fronts and encourage united marketing.

"We are competing against Westfield, and they have a single point of contact for marketing, for actually running the centre, and then you go down a main street and it's a bunch of small businesses operating totally in isolation with no single point of contact for maintaining the street, for marketing, for ensuring the buildings are up to scratch, for determining the appropriate mix of land use," he says.

"They're the sorts of things that a strategic co-ordination role focussing on the streets will ensure they can punch above their weight."

While some of these aims will give traders assurance, the question in the business community's mind is how he hopes to achieve any of his stated aims (given the Mayor only gets a vote in a deadlock). Also how "friendly" to business and development will this new council be?

BusinessSA says the council needs to use its term to prove its worth.

Chief executive Peter Vaughan said candidates had been "disarmingly candid" during the recent local government elections about previous councils' failures. If the new councillors do not do help advance the city, the State Government should finally "turf them out".

"We've now come to the acid test because - unless this council performs in the next (three) years, we will deliver critical harm to the future of South Australia because we will not be able to catch up on what should have been done in the past 15 years," he said.

"If we're going to be welcoming of tourists and festival goers...we need a vibrant, elegant, go-ahead city, not a city characterised by tumbleweeds."

Mr Yarwood said while he did not exert direct power, he would exercise "leadership and influence" to bring councillors with him.

He has experienced a "tremendous amount of goodwill and strong support" from the councillors, and says they appear to be on board with key redevelopments such as Adelaide Oval and the riverbank precinct, he says.

He believes he has general backing for his ideas and his vision to make Adelaide's CBD more technology friendly.

He campaigned on city-wide free wireless internet connection and argues this - and the expansion of outdoor dining - is a key plank in creating a more dynamic and attractive CBD environment.

It would also help market the city globally, he said.

"If we've got international students sitting outside during summer in an outdoor dining culture accessing free wi-fi and blogging, tweeting and facebooking about how awesome that moment in their life is, that goes viral across the planet and that's the sort of stuff that I think we really need to be thinking strategically about."

As part of this, he wants to develop a strategy to bring together traders on each main street - such as Hindley, Gouger and Hutt streets - under one banner to ensure appealing street fronts and encourage united marketing.

"We are competing against Westfield, and they have a single point of contact for marketing, for actually running the centre, and then you go down a main street and it's a bunch of small businesses operating totally in isolation with no single point of contact for maintaining the street, for marketing, for ensuring the buildings are up to scratch, for determining the appropriate mix of land use," he says.

"They're the sorts of things that a strategic co-ordination role focussing on the streets will ensure they can punch above their weight."

SRW wrote:

Revamp planned for lane off North Terrace
ABC News Online, 7 December 2010

Adelaide City Council is making plans to turn a run-down city lane into an entertainment precinct.

It wants to model Bank Street, which runs between North Terrace with Hindley Street, on the success of nearby Leigh Street, which includes a mix of eateries and shops.

Deputy Lord Mayor David Plumridge said work was still about a year off.

"A major planning process to go through the Riverbank masterplan and that will address the riverfront itself and linkages back to the city and that will include Bank Street, so until that plan has been looked at and decided on and consulted on we really can't move on Bank Street," he said.