Fort Largs Police Academy site to become high-density housing development under PEET proposal
The developer of Adelaide’s Lightsview estate is gunning to turn a historic beachfront block into housing.
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The developer of the high-density Lightsview housing estate is the frontrunner to redevelop a rare and historic piece of beachfront land in Adelaide’s northwestern suburbs for housing.
The Western Australian company PEET – which is behind Lightsview and the Tonsley Village housing projects – says it is the preferred tenderer to buy the former Fort Largs Police Academy at Taperoo from Renewal SA.
PEET State manager Mark Devine – who was former acting boss of Renewal SA before joining PEET last September – made the disclosure in a submission to state planning reforms, in which he said PEET’s vision for the Fort Largs site was a “residential-focused” masterplanned site similar to Lightsview
The Lightsview development, in Adelaide’s northeast, features predominantly medium-to-high-density housing, including townhouses and apartments.
The 7.4ha state-heritage listed 1880s Fort Largs site contains an old Barracks Building and Drill Hall, which were built in 1939.
The South Australian Police Academy moved in during the 1960s.
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But the property had been vacant since 2012 when the police academy moved into a new $53.4 million property to the east of the existing academy on Lady Gowrie Drive.
The former Labor government in 2016 selected a partnership between AV Jennings and the National Trust SA branch as preferred developers of the block under a $100 million deal. But AV Jennings pulled out of the deal citing drawn-out negotiations.
The Fort Largs property is zoned residential and is near the Osborne Naval Shipbuilding precinct.
Mr Devine, in his submission to the State Planning Commission, is the concerned that proposed planning reforms will restrict higher density development on the Fort Largs site and Lightsview estate.