Lot Fourteen will have its own retail street, as the transformation of the former RAH site heats up
Lot Fourteen will have its own “retail street” to support economic activity on the former Royal Adelaide Hospital site.
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Lot Fourteen will have its own “retail street” to support economic activity on the former Royal Adelaide Hospital site.
But those behind the major transformation of the site say it won’t compete with the nearby east end of the city, which is beginning to recover following a heavy hit when the hospital was closed and shifted west.
At a meeting of the Adelaide Park Lands Authority last week Mark Devine, acting chief executive of Renewal SA, Daniel Redden, project manager of the transformation, and James Hayter from landscape and urban planners Oxigen gave an update of the masterplan that will provide the basis for the development of the site.
The State Government wants to transform the 7ha site into an innovation and start up hub, as well as a defence landing pad.
As part of the Adelaide City Deal the Australian Space Agency will be housed on the site, while an National Aboriginal Art and Culture Gallery and International Centre for Tourism Hospitality and Food Studies are also part of the masterplan.
The masterplan also contains a “retail street” concept for the site.
Mr Hayter said it would not be in direct competition with the nearby east end strips.
“(It is) a street that is not a restaurant street but one that can support the Universities,” he said.
Julie Moralee, president of the East End Co-ordination Group, told The Advertiser it was the first she heard of such a street.
“They are part of our community … hopefully it will complement the East End (rather than compete against it),” she said.
Mr Redden said it would be “small scale”, while there could be accommodation for visiting entrepreneurs and scientists.
“To support that economic imperative for the site in terms of commercial there could be some small scale retail … and potentially some short stay accommodation,” he said.
In the slide show as part of the briefing, it says the short stay accommodation could be a “boutique hotel”.
Mr Devine said they would be part of “later stages” of Lot Fourteen’s development and would reflect future demand.
Mr Redden said there would be no freehold properties on Lot Fourteen, a major criticism of the previous plan for the site and eventually dumped by the former Labor Government.
The slide show also said the art gallery would have a “contemporary” space.
PwC have embarked on a $200,000 scoping study to look at the “visions and key recommendations” for the gallery.
The final costs of the gallery will be determined in a business case, but budget papers indicate that an estimated $10 million will be spent in 2020-21 to begin construction of the gallery, followed by $50 million the following financial year.
Diller Scofidio+Renfro and Woods Bagot have won an international competition for a world-class cultural institution on the site with their building featuring a dramatic ground floor “super lobby”, a suspended rooftop garden and a central “performance lab”.
But it is still not locked in as being the final design for the gallery.
Mr Devine said a key focus of the transformation of Lot Fourteen was creating public space.
“There will be a really strong increase in open space, 50 per cent of the site will be returned to open space,” he said.
Some of the space agency area will be locked down and off limits to the public.
Mr Devine also said it would cost $300 to $400 million to return the site to parklands, which parklands’ advocates have said should be done.
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