News & Discussion: City Revitalisation Initiatives

[Wayno]

Renew Adelaide

I've been in touch with Ianto Ware & Brigid Noone from Renew Adelaide. This initiative, based on a Newcastle model, aims to match aspiring business/arts people with empty building space in our CBD's West End. As you can imagine, many benefits will flow from such a program. Many thanks to Clr Yarwood for putting me in touch with them.

Today I invited Ianto & Brigid to become S-A members - hoping they will choose to join us in the near future.

It would be excellent if we could help Ianto & Brigid by providing ideas, inspiration, and generally adding momentum to their work. There may also be opportunity to help in other ways, but best if I let them talk more about that.

Here's a recent Independent Weekly article about Renew Adelaide:

Adelaide's derelict space to be renewed

Empty buildings in Adelaide’s derelict and sometimes dangerous west end will be filled under a new partnership between the Adelaide West End Association and Renew Adelaide.

Renew Adelaide was launched early this year and is an initiative of local arts-types Ianto Ware and Brigid Noone. Based on a Newcastle model, the project will create a pool of empty spaces and match them to aspiring business and creative people who need a base for their enterprise.

“We’re looking at bike repair shops, cafes, an open theatre, art galleries and heaps of other things,” said Ms Noone.

The model offers spaces at a vastly discounted price to help new projects. In return, the building owner has a better chance of leasing the property at full price.

“They get someone watching the space, cleaning it up, painting it and fixing the basic infrastructure issues,” said Mr Ware.

“The spaces are more likely to be rented when they’re being used because it’s like an advertisement. It’s a bit like an ongoing open inspection,” said Ms Noone.

The administrator of the Renew Newcastle project, Marcus Westbury, said Renew Adelaide would make the city safer.

“The Hunter Street Mall in Newcastle had about 20 vacant buildings and it was a no-go zone that was full of violence. Now there’s only three empty spaces and it’s a much more friendly environment,” he said.

The Adelaide West End Association is hoping for a similar change by joining with Renew Adelaide for an ArtWest project.

“We want to expose the creative parts of the west and show people the west end isn’t just the image of Hindley Street, alcohol and violence,” said association president Andrew Wallace.

ArtWest will showcase work from artists at UniSA, TAFE and other West End institutions. Some of the art will be shown in West End businesses and some will be displayed in spaces arranged by Renew Adelaide.

Ianto & Brigid, welcome and we look forward to chatting with you shortly.

[jk1237]

sounds good.

ps I love the photo stencil murals of that old guy riding a bike that a certain action group has been nautily sticking on buildings around the city. Makes me smile every time I see one. Ive found their group on facebook too

[Will]

I hope the ACC allows the establishment of bars by such an initiative. I think there really is a market for arty type bars where people just throw in a couple of couches, milk crates, cool music and cold drinks. I would really love to see such places open up around the West End but in particualr in the laneways just off Hindley Street.

[brigid noone]

Hi.... so great to hear from you,
thanks for you support and interest in Renew Adelaide! Sensational Adelaide is such a great resource, there are so many empty spaces! We are working towards our pilot project that will run from the 27th of May in the west end of town.
It would be great to meet up at talk about it all sometime.
cheers,
Brigid

[Mants]

I hope the ACC allows the establishment of bars by such an initiative. I think there really is a market for arty type bars where people just throw in a couple of couches, milk crates, cool music and cold drinks. I would really love to see such places open up around the West End but in particualr in the laneways just off Hindley Street.

i agree. these type of bars are dotted around melbourne's laneways, and really add another dimension to the city's nightlife.
some good sites I've thought of would be:
the space between red square and the dog&duck on hindley street.
the plaza on the corner of union/ebenezer place where the everfresh mural is.
the small courtyard just east of distil on rundle street.
the alleyway between twin street and hindmarsh square, opposity the jade monkey.

there is a facebook group for Renew Adelaide. Has a large following already! good luck guys!

[AG]

I'm very interested in finding out more about what projects Renew Adelaide is currently undertaking. Is Renew Adelaide targeting any specific part of the West End, or just the West End in general? Would be great to discuss this in person as well.

[SRW]

ps I love the photo stencil murals of that old guy riding a bike that a certain action group has been nautily sticking on buildings around the city. Makes me smile every time I see one. Ive found their group on facebook too

That old guy being Albert Einstein

[Will]

From the Messenger:

Revival plan for unloved West End streets

newsCouncil06 May 10 @ 12:01pm by Emily Charrison



Artists ianto Ware, Brigid Noone and Fringe director Christie Anthoney check out a building for Renew Adelaide.


EMPTY West End buildings will soon open their doors to aspiring artists, entrepreneurs and community groups, in a venture set to revive unloved city streets.

Renew Adelaide, a new volunteer-run community project, will begin moving tenants into an old factory and two shopfronts within the coming weeks.

The tenants plan to use the vacant sites for everything from showing off artworks to helping cyclists repair their bikes (see story below).

They will sign a rolling, rent-free 30 day lease providing they look after the buildings and pay for their own utilities.

It is modelled on a similar system in Newcastle, where for the past 18 months community groups have been paying bargain-basement rents for buildings that are vacant, disused or awaiting development.

Renew Adelaide project manager Ianto Ware said the idea was to revitalise under-used areas of town, curb vandalism and make the streets safer.

“We see this as a way to get people back into the city, to revive the city,” he said. “Instead of just going home and watching TV on the couch, we want to give people a reason to stay in town after dark.”

The West End side of the project is being run with help from the Adelaide West End Association, although Mr Ware said he hoped to soon expand to other areas of the city, such as Rundle Mall.

“It all depends on sourcing properties and the interest we get from landlords.

“At the moment we’ve got more people wanting to use the buildings than we do landlords.”

The City Council has allocated $15,000 in its 2010/11 draft budget to expand the project, and has also formed a working party to help Renew Adelaide’s volunteers source empty council-owned properties.

Contact Ianto Ware on [email protected]

[Norman]

From last night's Stateline:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/07/02/2943747.htm

[Will]

This renew Adelaide initiative is a great idea. Today, I saw the first fruits of the initiative in the utilisation of the formerly vacant shopfronts in Hindley Street next to the Tequila bar.

Like the guy fron Newcastle in the video Norman posted said, we need to get over this immature idea that we are going to be respected if we build a monorail or 8 star hotel-casino. Adelaide needs to forge its own path, and the renew Adelaide initiative by making our streets more interesting, will surely do a lot for reactivating the city.

[Waewick]

agreed Wil, forget what others are doing and do our own things.

[AG]

Agreed, interesting streets are not the result of one project or factor, but by many different components working together to make it that way.

[stumpjumper]

and what can they teach us?



I apologise for the rude, shouted heading, but I am sure that every S-A reader will get something from the following information I gathered on a recent visit to the UK. Despite talk of gloom and doom, the UK has a lot to teach about urban renewal.

Think of the depressed, post-industrial Midands. There are huge sites available, from derelict factories to run-down 1960s social housing schemes. A particularly effective redevelopment company (prominent among many) is Urban Splash. Their methodology involves imagination, clever design and appealing to the market of 2012.

Look carefully at what's been done by this company, and others like them.

A good example is 'Fort Dunlop' in Sutton Coldfield. Once the world's largest factory, it was derelict for years. Urban Splash's inspired move was to build a brand new Travelodge as part of the redevelopment of the factory as mixed use office/residential - the rest was achieved by imaginative architecture and flexible zoning:





The finished product is absolutely brilliant. The project taps into a huge market for people wanting to live near their jobs in the new tertiary industries populating the old indfustrial sites, and the Travelodge caters for transients. Sales are booming.

I met some of the guys and women from Urban Splash and was hugely impressed with their mix of economic re-use of old structures, sustainable design, inspired concepts and superb results.

Check out Urban Splash's projects on the net - and facebook and twitter. These guys really know what they're doing, and they are an object lesson for us. I'm thinking what they might have done with the warehouses at the Port that we demolished or have left to rot, or the very sound buildings at the Islington railyards that we replaced with tilt-slab boxes.

Just looking at the online brochures of one of these innovative development companies is exciting.

[Nathan]

Depressing news that the Integrated Design Commission and the Thinkers in Residence programs will be wound up, to save a measly $2.5m.

The Thinkers in Residence program was set up by former Premier Mike Rann in 2003 and will now be wound up next year. The Integrated Design Commission will end later this year.

Cutting the Thinkers program will save about $1m a year and the Integrated Design Commission about $1.5 million a year. Ending the Entertainment Centre lease will save the Government $288,000 over four years and follows a decision this year to cut back on entertainment at the Clipsal 500 event.

"We have a very difficult budget, a tough budget, and you're dealing with such a large revenue write down, the government has to be seen to be cutting its cloth," Treasurer Jack Snelling told ABC 891 Adelaide this morning.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/corporate ... 6373027937
http://m.theaustralian.com.au/national- ... 6373034008

[mutt]

saving a million dollars is good governance, especially when it was previously being spent on something of little value. ie importing globalist poms to share their stupid ideas

I Mr Weatherill