Mapped: Who owns Adelaide’s west end? The family landlords who are transforming Hindley St and our buzzing city laneways
Local families have amassed the lion’s share of property in the city’s bustling west end. We’ve scoured the records and can reveal who they are and how they’ve helped transform Hindley St and the city’s buzzing laneways.
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Adelaide’s west end has undergone a major transformation in recent years, backed by millions of dollars of investment and the vision of a handful of local property owners.
Analysis undertaken by The Advertiser and international property group JLL reveals the local families who have amassed the lion’s share of property in the city’s bustling west end, and how they’ve helped transform the precinct.
More than 100 properties, or 83 per cent of those surveyed along Hindley, Leigh, Peel and Bank streets are owned by local families including the Polites, Ginos, Angelopoulos and Kambitsis families.
Those four families alone control 39, or 30 per cent, of properties in the precinct.
They invested heavily in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, when Hindley St developed a reputation for being Adelaide’s seedy end of town, rife with alcohol fuelled violence and crime.
JLL research director Rick Warner says the families and other local private investors had kept a tight grip on property in Adelaide’s west end, with only a “handful of transactions” each year.
“Apart from a small proportion of institutional money that has bought into the strip in recent times, it is predominantly owned by private investors, with almost half of the assets not traded since the 1980’s,” he said.
“A lot of family names, well known in the Adelaide commercial property sector - namely entities associated with the Polites, Angelopoulos, Ginos and Kambitsis families - hold a lot of real estate, and have done for a very long time.”
The Polites family remains the most prominent landlord on Hindley St, retaining ownership of 16 properties including the Woolshed on Hindley, the Mac Boutique Hotel on the corner of Bank St and Princes Centre at the western end of the strip.
Family patriarch Con Polites became known as the “King of Hindley St” after buying up in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Angelopoulos family, whose extensive property portfolio includes real estate on Rundle Mall and King William Rd, Unley, owns six Hindley St properties including the home of Downtown and the strip of shops adjacent to the nightclub.
It is also landlord to several small bars on Peel St including Alfred’s Bar, La Moka and Paloma Bar.
Meanwhile six Kambitsis properties in the west end include the former HQ nightclub, Apoteca and Grainger Studio - the home of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.
Mr Warner says local families have helped transform Adelaide’s west end into one of the city’s most vibrant precincts.
“Hindley Street has had its challenges over the years, but there’s definitely a vitality along the strip these days,” he said.
“The obvious epicentre of it all is the successful transformation of Peel and Leigh streets into the city’s most popular hospitality destination.
“However, there is an emerging hospitality pocket at the western edge of Hindley, which is serviced by a massive number of hospital-related visitors and also the University of South Australia City West campus.”
The revival of Leigh St kick-started the activation of Adelaide’s west end laneways, which have become home to Adelaide’s burgeoning small bar scene.
After acquiring the properties lining Leigh St in 2003, Adelaide developer Zis Ginos and son George embarked on a long-term vision to change the face of the precinct.
It has since become one of Adelaide’s favourite dining and small bar destinations.
“Leigh St was probably 70 or 80 per cent vacant when we took them over so it’s been a tough slog, but there was a plan to fix the buildings up over time, one by one and bring in some quality tenants,” George said.
“That in turn feeds the ground floor restaurants and hospitality scene that’s been created, and then because of that more tenants want to come and have their offices in the precinct - one feeds the other and vice versa.
“To quote dad, he wanted to create a place that people said, ‘have you been to Leigh St’ - that was his vision.”
“Now people say, ‘have you been to Peel St’ as well, and we’d like to think we’ve played a bit of a part in that by kick-starting with what we did with our property there - Clever Little Tailor, Peel St restaurant, connecting it through to Leigh St through the tunnel.”
Mr Ginos acknowledges the role played by the introduction of small bar licences in 2013, in the revival of Leigh St and its surrounds.
“Small bars, the hospital, the university bringing more people in, the Oval bringing people on the weekends, and just generally making it a seven day city,” he said.
“Before there were times when there was nothing happening around the city and it was a ghost town, but now all that seems to have changed.”
While the eastern end of Hindley St has remained one of the city’s premier night spots, the western end has accommodated the expansion of UniSA.
The university bought up land west of Morphett St ahead of its City West campus opening in the 1990s, and has since expanded its footprint with construction of the Jeffrey Smart Building, Pridham Hall and other academic facilities.
The university’s Enterprise 25 strategic plan includes plans to consolidate campuses, and that means more development at City West, according to UniSA facilities management director Phil Clatworthy.
“We envisage greater numbers of students coming onto the City West campus and to accommodate them we’ll need to redevelop some of our sites,” he said.
“I think what’s missed in the whole narrative is the investment of the university in the public realm.
“Certainly west of Morphett, we were instrumental in the upgrading of that section of Hindley St five or so years ago, and some of the laneways that traverse the campus, they’ve all been upgraded from the university.
“Over 30-odd years, in that west of Morphett end, there’s definitely been a change and an improvement in safety - definitely an amenity change that’s just been massive.”
UniSA is currently working with the Adelaide City Council on designs for a $5 million upgrade of George St, which runs adjacent to the university’s Law Courtyard, from Hindley St to North Tce.
“Really that is something we’re very keen on, wanting to green George St and strengthen it as a pedestrian thoroughfare,” he said.
Property Council SA executive director Daniel Gannon said the dominance of local family ownership in the west end was something that was “uniquely Adelaide”.
“When we look at the evolution of Adelaide’s west end in recent years, it’s almost entirely a direct result of visionary and innovative property owners taking a punt to reshape that precinct,” he said.