Hindley Street night strip traders want to turn it into a shopping district by day
HINDLEY St has for decades lived a double life – alive at night and asleep during the day. But now there’s a new push to reshape its reputation.
SA News
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Past tales of Hindley St:
- Downtown to be revived as a major nightclub
- SA Police launch ‘Operation City Safe’ crackdown
- Opinion: We don’t need another mega Hindley St venue
- Bail sought over death of Jack Hanley in Hindley St fight
- Plan to make Hindley St into a one-way street
IT is the city’s beating heart on a Saturday night, pumping with people dressed to the nines and decked out in their dancing shoes.
But when the music stops and the sun comes up the next morning, Hindley St – save for the groans of the odd late-night straggler stumbling down the street – falls silent.
It is a similar story during the week, almost like the street is afraid to come out during the day.
But that all could soon change – if the Hindley business community gets its way.
Adelaide West End Association has embarked on a project titled “Future Hindley” on the back of a $20,000 grant from Adelaide City Council.
The group, with the help of UniSA students, will develop a marketing plan for the main party precinct between Morphett and King William streets.
The brief is simple enough. Devise a plan to show there is more to Hindley St than nightclubs and bars – that there is just as much to do when the sun is up as when it goes down.
The association’s president, Andrew Wallace, said the first task was to gather data about the strip, including details on property ownership and building stock, and analysing how day and night economies work off each other.
He said he hoped to complete the work by the end of the financial year, when they expected to have a clear, trader-driven vision for “the next chapter of Hindley”.
“We have a really good collection of night-time traders in the street,” Mr Wallace said.
“But what we do miss is a complementary daytime trade.”
Mr Wallace wants to see more local creatives set up shop on Hindley to leverage off the West End’s growing student population.
“One of the ways we see Hindley St is a continuation of the Mall and of Rundle St east,” he said.
“It’s not market fashion, it’s not mainstream retail like the Mall. It is a mix of good-quality hospitality and probably slightly quirkier shops.”
The association will also investigate ways of encouraging owners to maintain the buildings and look for ways that traders can use their shopfront in a more engaging way.
“This is an amazing street. It is not a problem,” he said.
“It is just an amazing part of our history, and it should be a fantastic part of our city moving forward.”
An amazing part of Adelaide’s history it might be, but Hindley St can be a challenging place to run a business.
Hotel Grand Chancellor general manager Tony Scrivener lost $13,500 when a large tour group cancelled a booking after the release of statistics last month that showed partygoers are twice as likely to fall victim to violence on Hindley St than anywhere else in the city.
The group pulled the booking “because they feared for their clients’ safety when they walked out the front door”, according to Mr Scrivener.
The hotel last week also made a “conscious decision” to remove the words “on Hindley” from its branding, “to really try and remove that stigma”.
“We don’t want to have to disassociate ourselves from Hindley St because, to be perfectly honest, I don’t want to be anywhere else,” he said.
“Hindley St doesn’t need to be shiny, it doesn’t need to be pretty. It just needs to have a good bloody clean and some well-thought-out planning of what it can become.”
Mr Scrivener said more needed to be done to capitalise on increased foot traffic in the West End, which has increased since the opening last year of the new Royal Adelaide Hospital and the unveiling of the $397 million Convention Centre revamp.
“Where is the stationery shop? Where is the computer shop? Where is the printing shop? Where is all of the things the students might want?” he said.
“We have a high international student market and they have to walk down the other end of the city just to be able to get something that meets their needs.”
The City Council has been eyeing an upgrade of Hindley St for almost five years – but progress has been slow.
In 2013, the council supported developing a strategic plan for the West End precinct, including opportunities to stimulate the daytime economy.
Two years later, councillor Houssam Abiad called for upgrades between Morphett St and King William St – but to no avail.
Cr Abiad this week said a rejuvenation of the party precinct was long overdue.
“It’s been very disappointing to see a complete lack of action on behalf of our administration,” he said.
Mr Abiad said he would push to see a Hindley St upgrade come to fruition this year because this “little strip has been completely neglected”.
“We are still focusing on laneways extending out of the riverbank to market precinct, without paying any attention to Hindley St,” he said
“So this is not about changing the look and feel, it’s just about providing better safety and the opportunities around the night-time economy, but at the same time its about bringing a day economy to the street.”
Among the items on the wishlist of Cr Abiad, the association and local traders are wider footpaths to address queuing outside nightclubs and a lack of space between outdoor dining areas, as well as improved lighting, more bins and greenery.
Adelaide City Council operations director Beth Davidson-Park said the council planned to “explore” an upgrade of Hindley in “2018-19 and beyond”.
The State Government last year also won the City Council’s support to investigate making traffic in Hindley St flow one-way, in a bid to increase room for outdoor dining and reduce anti-social behaviour.
Transport and Infrastructure Minister Stephen Mullighan said traffic modelling and designs were expected to be completed within the next two months. Traders would then be consulted on the options.
“The purpose of this project is to get a better road for you (businesses) and that’s what we’ve come up with,” Mr Mullighan said.
“If they are generally receptive then we can refine that, maybe make tweaks and changes they might want.”
One way or another, the city’s tired Hindley St needs a wake-up call.
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