Caleb Bond: Council, business owners, government – knock your heads together and rejuvenate King William St

Have you walked down the northern end of King William St lately? The place is a veritable rubbish tip. Council, business owners, government – rejuvenate this hole, writes Caleb Bond.

The Lord Mayor is right – parts of the Adelaide CBD are a run-down dump.

Jane Lomax-Smith didn’t miss with her choice of words: “derelict, decaying and depressing”.

Have you walked down the northern end of King William St lately? The place is a veritable rubbish tip.

The footpaths look like they haven’t been cleaned since Michael Harbison was Lord Mayor. Litter is often strewn everywhere.

And how many convenience stores and currency exchanges can one street possibly need? King William St is meant to be – according to Adelaide City Council – one of the city’s “ceremonial” boulevards.

It is a focal point of the city. It is the gateway for many people coming to work each day and it goes right through the guts of the place.

But it has all the grandeur of a northern-suburbs pokie den.

This is meant to be one of the city’s “ceremonial” boulevards. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

What a perfect spot for a prestige shopping brand ... not. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

That’s why it’s so full of convenience stores. No prestige shopping brand would open an outlet on King William St, despite it being around the corner from Rundle Mall, because it would look so out of place.

Rents are low because the place is dirty. So low-value businesses move in and nothing improves. It is a vicious cycle.

Nothing proves this better than the curious case of Edmund Wright House – a beautiful building just south of the Mayfair Hotel – which was one of the first buildings in Adelaide to be heritage listed. Its interior is just as pretty as its exterior.

It was built in 1878 for the Bank of South Australia and has variously been occupied by other banks and government departments over its lifetime.

Edmund Wright House, 59 King William St, Adelaide. Picture: Michael Marschall

I complained in these pages more than two years ago that such a rich asset was sitting empty and that its front steps had turned into a glorified garbage bin. And little has changed.

They clean up the rubbish these days but the building’s owner, the state government, listed it for lease for the umpteenth time last month – and still no takers.

They’ve tried to sell it multiple times, too, and no one wants it.

What does it say about what is meant to be one of Adelaide’s premier streets that no one wants to use one of the city’s most beautiful and historic buildings?

The old Adelaide Metro info centre was given approval for a 39-storey hotel in 2018. Where it is, nobody knows. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

King William St could – and should – be a bustling, high-end strip. Instead it’s this. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

The old Adelaide Metro info centre on the corner of Currie St now graciously has its windows covered by some weird egg-looking artwork so passers-by don’t have to look at the piles of bird droppings left by pigeons that infested the building in late 2019. But the shopfront is still frequently vandalised despite the installation of some piddly (and unsightly) temporary fencing.

That site was given approval for a 39-storey hotel in 2018. Where it is, nobody knows.

Derelict, decaying and depressing indeed.

This is what Adelaide serves up to tourists. It’s embarrassing.

King William St could – and should – be a bustling strip of high-end shops and restaurants with outdoor dining. It needs some life.

But that requires the council to take the lead, clean the place up and start working with property owners to create a place people want to be.

Council, business owners and government – knock your heads together and rejuvenate this hole.