Arkaba Hotel among businesses to lose land in Glen Osmond and Fullarton Roads intersection upgrade

A slice of the Arkaba Hotel’s land is being acquired for the upgrade of Glen Osmond and Fullarton Roads. A handful of other businesses will lose part of their land as well.

The Arkaba Hotel is among a handful of businesses that are being forced to hand over part of their properties to the state government to make way for a $35 million upgrade of the Glen Osmond and Fullarton Roads intersection.

Slices of properties housing an aged care provider, a Covid-19 vaccination clinic and a doctor’s surgery are also being taken by the Transport Department as part of the project, the government gazette reveals.

And it appears that a Nordburger restaurant near the intersection is also under threat, with concept plans showing a road being realigned through the property.

Nordburger declined to comment when contacted by The Advertiser.

The Hurley Hotel Group, which owns the Arkaba Hotel, says the government is acquiring 186 sqm of its land.

“It’s a strip of our land along Fullarton Rd, adjacent the bottleshop and the Arkaba Village carpark,” Hurley Hotel Group general manager Sam McInnes said.

“The maximum width of the strip is 1.67m (so) it doesn’t impact our buildings.”

However, Mr McInnes said construction work on the project may affect the hotel’s operations.

“The risk will be the traffic interruption while the project is underway, the difficulties of entry and exit during the project, and the potential for noise and disturbance while night works are occurring,” he said.

Land in front of the Arkaba Medical Centre and neighbouring Adelaide Central Vaccination Clinic and Adelaide Central Respiratory Clinic building is also being acquired.

Arkaba Medical Centre director Dr Vikas Jasoria, who also runs the Covid-19 and respiratory clinics, was supportive of the intersection upgrade but had some safety and access concerns.

“Given we are a flagship medical centre, we provide an important community service and we see some very elderly, very frail people and the road will now be two metres closer to the medical centre so the amount of space between the road and the medical centre can potentially be a hazard for those elderly patients,” he said.

“(Also) at the moment patients take a right onto Hone St, next to the medical centre, to access the building, and now they’re going to have to come around the block...because they’re planning to stop the right turn access into Hone street.”

The existing intersection of Fullarton Road and Glen Osmond Road.

Eldercare chief executive officer Jane Pickering said the organisation was working with the Transport Department to “ensure that the upgrade...will be undertaken with the least disruption possible to our head office, located on the south western corner of this intersection”.

“Eldercare is still working through the details of the land acquisition, the timing of the acquisition and the impact on our building with the department,” she said.

Ms Pickering said Eldercare would not be required to vacate the building or relocate its operations during the upgrade.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Commercial Retail Group, the company that owns Frewville Foodland, would not confirm if any of their land was being acquired as part of the project.

“As a major business and employer in the precinct, the Commercial Retail Group is having ongoing discussions with the state government about the planned Glen Osmond Road widening and expect these discussions to continue over the coming months,” he said.

The Transport Department did not respond to the The Advertiser’s request for comment by its deadline.

According to the department’s website, the major construction work on the upgrade will begin this year with the project expected to be open to traffic by mid-2022.

A concept of the finished intersection.

A proposed concept design on the website shows the upgrade would include several modifications including the widening of Fullarton Rd to provide an additional through traffic lane on each side of the thoroughfare through the intersection; the widening of Glen Osmond Rd to provide an extra dedicated right turn lane from Glen Osmond Rd onto Fullarton Rd for northbound traffic and a longer right turn lane on Glen Osmond Rd turning onto Fullarton Rd for southbound traffic.

It would also include relocating the junction of Main Avenue and Glen Osmond Rd about 35-40m southeast from its existing location.

This would appear to clash with the Nordburger restaurant on the corner of Glen Osmond and Main Avenue.