Second Festival Plaza tower should be considered for MPs’ and Premier’s offices: Nick Champion

A state minister has urged community debate about moving the Premier’s headquarters into a new tower next to Parliament House.

Debate about housing MPs’ offices and a relocated Premier’s headquarters at a second Festival Plaza tower next to Parliament House is being urged by Planning Minister Nick Champion.

In an interview with The Advertiser, Mr Champion said the prime CBD site’s developer, Walker Corporation, had indicated plans were likely to be lodged for another office tower.

Declaring the state government open to considering these, Mr Champion called for debate about integrating the civic square and parliament into the precinct’s development.

“We’ve got a building here that was built in the earlier part of the last century and, obviously, things have changed in that time,” he said.

“We now need to contemplate how we get a parliament that properly functions. Having some modern office space is a sensible part of that debate.

“Having some modern civic space – that is what areas people use, whether it’s school groups, or other visitors or citizens coming to watch the parliament and the like – we should have a sensible debate about that as well.”

Festival Plaza artist impressions from November, 2021, showing the completed plaza with one office tower and the retail/entertainment complex. Picture: ARM Architecture

Asked whether the Premier’s office and other functions of Victoria Square’s State Administration Centre should move to any new Festival Plaza tower, Mr Champion said this too should be open to debate.

“I think that would be a separate but also useful debate. Obviously, Victoria Square has a life of its own,” he said.

“The Advertiser’s had articles about the age of that building. All of those things have to be considered in a proper debate about the way we’re going to structure our city.”

An Advertiser article in early September canvassed shifting the Premier’s office to the Festival Plaza precinct, highlighting that the State Administration Centre building was constructed in 1967, opened in 1968 and, in a 1987 Advertiser report, was branded as unfit by a government office accommodation committee.

Then premier Steven Marshall, Flinders University vice-chancellor Colin Stirling and Walker Corporation chief executive David Gallant on November 29, 2021, launching the building of the Festival Tower and Plaza by Walker Corporation. Picture: Emma Brasier.

Flinders University is the anchor tenant in a 29-storey office tower being built just to the northwest of Parliament House, under a deal hammered out last November by the previous Liberal government.

This allowed the tower and an associated three-storey retail/entertainment complex to be built on the plaza – bounded by parliament, the Festival Centre, Adelaide Casino and King William Rd.

The deal also granted an extra lease of air space above the three-storey retail complex and a mechanism to allow Walker to request development rights to build a second tower that it has long coveted.

The-then treasurer Rob Lucas last November vowed he would not approve a second tower, declaring this would be open to a future government to consider.

A Walker Corporation spokesman said: “We respect the government’s comments and their concerns they have raised and we are working with them to ensure we deliver an exceptional outcome on this important site and one that meets their approval.”