Greg Barila: Shed 26 at Fletcher’s Slip is part of Adelaide’s history, no matter how it looks
The “ugly” shed at Fletcher’s Slip, slated to be demolished any day now, represents much more than just a pile of tin and steel, writes Greg Barila.
West & Beaches
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- Kevin McCloud gets behind doomed Port Adelaide shed
- Shed 26 at Port Adelaide: Demolition set to begin
- SA Maritime Museum should go in Shed 26 at Port Adelaide
Why can’t we get Port Adelaide right?
Five years ago I wrote a column — a lot like this one — lamenting the fact our Port had been stuck in a sad melange of neglect and bad decision-making.
The failure of Newport Quays was a misstep that has changed the Port for the worse, for decades, if not forever and only served to underscore the fact that sometimes, even when the community has an appetite for progress, no development is better than bad development.
Let’s call it the Hippocratic approach to change. “First, do no harm”.
So, seven years after the Weatherill government pulled the pin on Newport Quays, what’s changed? And are we any closer to realising the enormous potential of the Port, as a major tourism destination, a hub for food, arts, culture and industry and vibrant place to live?
The best answer we can muster seems to be “sort of”.
Programs like Renew Adelaide, which helps connect new businesses with rolling 30-day rent-free leases in vacant buildings, has helped inject new life into Commercial Rd and St Vincent St, which have both seen the arrival of new cafes, restaurants, the hugely successful Low & Slow American BBQ and the brilliantly renovated Port Admiral Hotel, which sat dormant for a decade.
Funding for Renew Adelaide in the Port was, sadly, cut in late 2017 but at least left the district, better, stronger and more alive than it found it.
And while the powers that be have yet to find a permanent use for the site, a $2.5m redevelopment of Hart’s Mill has turned the precinct into a beautiful public space that manages to both honour the building’s heritage while also turning it into a practical venue for the council’s annual Winterfest program and other events.
Which is what makes what’s happening (or not happening, more like) across the water from the old flour mill, at Fletcher’s Slip, with the imminent demolition of a wonderful old sawtooth shed, feel so retrograde and so disappointing.
I took a drive down there one recent weekend and tweeted a series of photos I snapped through the bars on the windows, along with a kind of appeal to the cosmos for somebody out there to step in and stop the bulldozers in their tracks.
The next day they put a fence up, blocking access to the former dockyard, in preparation for the inevitable, a new residential estate for 500 new townhouses and apartments.
Meanwhile, the debate in my Twitter feed raged on, with those on Team Progress cheering on the demolition of the “ugly”, disused, asbestos-riddled shed for the sake of something finally happening there.
“They’ve been neglected and unused since 1989 and filled with asbestos. Time for new character,” Daniel Gannon, the SA executive director of the Property Council tweeted.
Dave added: “I agree with the sentiment (in wanting to save them), but, they are after all, sheds. Harts Mill, The Admiral, The Birkenhead etc have been saved and the wharves will always be there.
“If, after 30 years, nothing has been done with them and someone wants to put money into the precinct, let them.”
Those on Team Preservation appealed for those opposite to see the shed not for what it is but what it could be.
“Perfect opportunity to retain the heritage value of these sheds,” a user named Bulldog Central tweeted.
“How about a western version of our Central Markets with fresh fruit ‘n veg and fresh seafood relocated from Torrens Island markets — live music, acts, entertainment.
“The perfect backdrop!”
My colleague, heritage writer Tim Lloyd, has made the case for turning the old shed into a new home for the SA Maritime Museum, while others say they could easily imagine the space being used for everything from a technology hub, a food, events and market hall in the style of Plant 4 at Bowden, to offices or housing.
Too hard, too expensive, Team Progress retorted.
“Be easier to knock them over and build something new IMHO (in my humble opinion),” Melanie tweeted.
Which, of course, is exactly the point.
On the road to profits, developers will always look for the path of least resistance. And demolishing run-down old sheds, warehouses, shops and houses is always cheaper and easier than imagining how the past and future might be married.
In some ways my opposing the demolition of Shed 26 is less about the building itself.
The shed was only built in the late 1950s, isn’t heritage-listed and isn’t architecturally or historically the most significant building in the Port, although those campaigning to save them say it is the “last surviving sawtooth shed in the inner harbour” and a last remnant of the town’s long history as a working port.
It is more about what we stand to lose when we replace the buildings and objects that tie us to our past, and make our city more interesting, with more of the homogenised box apartments that are now ruining the character and individuality of nearly all of suburban Adelaide.
It is the kind of development, I feel strongly, we will pretty quickly come to regret and which even State Planning Commision chair Michael Lennon has warned is already having a detrimental impact on our urban environment, as parks and vegetation get swallowed up by glass and concrete.
As Grand Designs host Kevin McCloud remarked so eloquently as he added his voice to the campaign, “we can’t let the quieter, more modest buildings be swept away when they’re so much a part of who we are and where we’ve come from”.
“Their contribution to the uniqueness of place is almost beyond measure and something you can’t reproduce with the newfangled.”
I don’t know about you, but I don’t want Adelaide to be just a place in which to exist.
I want Adelaide to be a city to live in.
That’s why the “ugly” shed at Fletcher’s Slip is more than just a pile of tin and steel but, in fact, a symbol of who we want ourselves to be.
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