Lord Mayor Martin Haese seeking new planning rules to rejuvenate Adelaide’s North Tce
UPDATED: IT is Adelaide’s premier cultural boulevard but North Tce is littered with vacant buildings and unused office space. Dan Jervis-Bardy reports on a new push to revitalise the street.
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READ BELOW: Boulevard of dreams facing renewal reality
A SPECIAL set of planning rules is needed to spur a regeneration of North’s Tce’s vacant heritage-listed buildings, Lord Mayor Martin Haese says.
Mr Haese said the introduction of height limits and tough rules around setbacks would also protect the CBD’s cultural boulevard from “wall-to-wall 30-storey buildings”.
A number of State Heritage-listed buildings have long sat vacant on the stretch between King William St and Frome St, including Gawler Chambers.
About 11,000sq m of office space is without a tenant — a commercial vacancy rate of roughly 20 per cent.
Mr Haese said stricter planning rules would entice developments befitting “Australia’s best cultural boulevard”, such as high-end apartments and educational and cultural buildings.
His vision for the southern side of North Tce does not include student accommodation, like the 34-storey tower, 680-bed tower planned for the site of the Church of Christ, Scientist building, at the Frome St intersection.
“We are pro-development, pro-progress, but North Tce is the jewel in the crown and it must hold itself to the highest standards,” Mr Haese said.
Planning Minister John Rau said he was “very disappointed” in North Tce’s vacancy rate and was open to discussing Mr Haese’s proposal.
But Mr Rau noted the State Government had already made numerous attempts to tackle the issue after pledging in 2014 to fill every vacancy on North Tce within three years.
This included offering property owners a “chauffeured passage” through the development application process to stimulate investment.
Liberal planning spokesman David Pisoni did not respond to questions this week, but the Opposition has previously said its plan to relax building rules for pre-1980 buildings was the key to bringing Adelaide’s “architectural treasures back to life”.
BOULEVARD OF DREAMS PREPARING FOR A DOSE OF RENEWAL REALITY
By Dan Jervis-Bardy
MARTIN Haese is not happy.
The Lord Mayor walks up to a locked door at 206 North Tce and makes a half-hearted attempt to look inside.
No one is home — but he already knew that.
There is rubbish strewn along the front of the building and dried vomit is splattered at the entrance. A row of green awnings is faded and torn.
Even the pidgeons steer clear of this vacant haunt.
Mr Haese sighs. It is not supposed to be like this.
North Tce is the jewel in the city’s crown, he says, the Champs-Élysées of Adelaide, if not Australia.
But while the boulevard’s northern side is blessed with a botanic garden, a university and a museum, the south side cuts a comparatively forlorn figure.
A number of State Heritage-listed buildings have long sat vacant on the stretch between King William St and Frome St, including Gawler Chambers — the office built in 1913 to house the people who created Adelaide, the South Australian Company.
About 11,000sq m of office space is without a tenant, a commercial vacancy rate of roughly 20 per cent.
North Tce poses a complex problem that policy makers and property owners have for years tried, and failed, to overcome.
The grand old properties are the strip’s biggest asset, but building rules make them expensive to renovate and economically unattractive to redevelop.
The result is evident to the millions who walk this stretch of North Tce each year. But now, as the CBD welcomes the world for another Mad March, Mr Haese has a plan to finally fix the city’s boulevard of broken dreams.
He wants the State Government to draw up a special set of planning rules to spur a regeneration of North Tce’s vacant buildings while simultaneously protecting them from “inappropriate” high-rise development.
“We need special recognition for this street,” Mr Haese tells The City. “I believe that we already have that in our minds, but we don’t have it from a planning perspective.”
The first step would be to impose height limits on new buildings on North Tce, where no such restrictions now exist.
This appears something of a contradiction. Wouldn’t strict planning rules discourage dollar-conscious developers?
To the contrary, Mr Haese says it would entice the type of development that moulds to his image for “Australia’s best cultural boulevard” — high-end apartments and educational and cultural buildings.
Pointedly, this does not include student accommodation, like the 34-storey tower planned for the Church of Scientology site at the corner of North Tce and Frome St
“I think it has some architectural merit but from a land-use perspective, frankly I think we can do better,” he says of GSA’s 680-bed tower, which the State Planning Commission is scheduled to assess next month.
“Student accommodation, it can really go anywhere.”
Mr Haese says height controls, coupled with rules around setbacks, would safeguard the strip from “wall-to-wall 30-storey buildings”.
“Once you have one (30-storey building), there is an argument for a second and a 15th,” he says.
“We are pro-development, pro-progress, but North Tce is the jewel in the crown and it must hold itself to the highest standards.”
Planning Minister John Rau is willing to discuss Mr Haese’s vision, should Labor be returned to government at the March 17 state election.
But it’s not as though Mr Rau has not confronted the problem in the past.
The State Government announced in 2014 a pledge to fill every vacancy on North Tce within three years — a promise evidently unfulfilled.
Mr Rau says he has relaxed building rules for heritage-listed properties, convened meetings with property owners and even offered them a “chauffeured passage” through the development application process in an effort to stimulate investment. But little, if any, progress has been made.
“I won’t beat around the bush,” Mr Rau tells The City. “I’m very disappointed.”
Mr Rau says the reasons behind the lack of action are varied, and not all within the State Government’s control.
He points to federal laws around disability access and requirements as one barrier.
“It (a redevelopment of a heritage-listed building) also depends on the bank’s requirements and the kind of pre-sales and collateral before they press the ‘go’ button’,” he says.
“Anecdotally, a lot of these (proposals) would have gone ahead some time ago had the banks had a lower precommitment.”
Property owners have, at times in the past 10 years, secured planning approvals to redevelop their buildings.
Adelaide Development Holdings — a property consortium that includes family members of former lord mayor John Roche — lodged plans in 2012 for a $25 million redevelopment of Gawler Chambers. The 15-storey tower was to include a mix of office and shops behind the State Heritage-listed building, at the northern exit of Gawler Place, which has been empty since 2004.
Company chief executive Ian Marker said the company is committed to the project but said it remained unviable until the company secured a “number of tenants” necessary to raise finance.
“The banks won’t loan money if you can’t generate an income and repay the loans,” he said.
“It’s an old building, the structure is quite weak so we can’t build on top, we really need to put new supports in (Gawler Chambers) to keep everything up to standards.
“The problem is you can’t stage it, we’ve got to do it all at once...it’s a conundrum.
He said closing the building was necessary as it was costing the company more money to maintain it as there were only “one or two tenants”.
He said the company was keen to explore “every opportunity” to do something.
“We’re certainly not leaving it sitting there (empty) because we want to,” he said. “The company is committed to try and make it happen; it will take a while.”
Opposition planning spokesman David Pisoni did not respond to The City’s inquiries this week, but has previously said a Liberal Party plan to relax building rules for pre-1980 buildings is the key to bringing Adelaide’s “architectural treasures back to life”.
Mr Rau, too, is confident there is a light at the end of the tunnel. He believes that one North Tce property owner will eventually take the plunge and rest of the vacant buildings will “grow like mushrooms”.
The first shoots might already be coming through.
Culinary school Le Cordon Bleu and prominent local developer Commercial & General were last year granted approval for a $260 million redevelopment of 200 North Tce, next to the old Club 199. Commercial & General chief executive Trevor Cooke says construction of the 18-storey office and retail space will start next year, with work scheduled for completion in mid-2021.
Mr Cooke is not concerned about North Tce’s vacancy rate, saying Adelaide’s best buildings always attract high-quality tenants.
“North Tce is a great opportunity for both,” he says.
Mr Haese certainly thinks so.
And as he stands next to another one of North Tce’s hollow haunts, he is hopeful that opportunity, possibility and potential might soon become reality.
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