Mackay CBD: Place Plan brings new events to City Centre

The team behind the Waterfront PDA say the city is ready to take it up a notch. Find out more about long-table dinners and other exciting ideas.

Funky artwork, refurbished streets and festoon lighting are the elements making Mackay ready to embrace its urban bones and activate the CBD.

And weaving it together is the recently completed Fifth Lane as the soon-to-be backdrop for new events as part of Mackay Regional Council’s developing Placemaking Plan.

It will detail placemaking initiatives to revitalise and integrate the city centre as a vital precinct within the larger Mackay Waterfront Priority Development Area.

Mackay City and Waterfront project manager Kylie Rogers said placemaking was about creating a “lovability” factor enticing families and friends to add a spot to their favourites.

“We’re after those creative ideas from the community on what would actually make them love a place,” Ms Rogers said.

Mackay City and Waterfront project manager Kylie Rogers and project co-ordinator Stacey Mills are excited for the community to experience place activation in the CBD including with special events in Fifth Lane. Ms Rogers says she is confident that once one business starts to use the laneway, others will follow suit. Picture: Heidi Petith

Project co-ordinator Stacey Mills said ideas floated so far included long-tabled themed dinners in the laneway, pop-up coffee shops with milk crate seating and using the alcoves in Fifth Lane for new businesses.

“We’re really excited for what comes out of (the plan),” Ms Mills said.

“Over the next few months we’ll start to see a few activation tasters and then hopefully we’ll able to start working with some partners soon to get their ideas off the ground as well as our own.”

The Place Plan — to be drafted over the next few weeks — will use information gathered from an audit that assessed vacancies, business types, streetscape quality, underused spaces and areas of opportunity and residential occupation.

Ms Rogers said it was a misnomer the CBD was broken.

“It’s far from the dire state everybody thinks its in,” she said.

“A lot of businesses have opened since Covid-19 began.”

She said this included cafes as well as a number of new thriving business on Wood and Victoria streets with landlords showing renewed interest in the CBD via considering alternative models to attract new tenants.

Mackay City and Waterfront project manager Kylie Rogers and project co-ordinator Stacey Mills are excited for the community to experience place activation in the CBD. Ms Rogers said it was an interesting but little known fact Mackay’s CBD was larger than Brisbane’s. ‘At about 120ha, that is the same distance as the Brisbane Botanic Gardens to Fortitude Valley. This disperses the population, making it appear the City Centre is quiet, when the population is actually dispersed across a large area.’ Picture: Heidi Petith

“Although the current focus is on the city centre and riverside areas, we are open to exploring opportunities anywhere in the Mackay Waterfront area and surrounds if it creates a great community and/or business outcome,” she said.

Other community suggestions for the PDA included activations on or near the river revolving around fitness, Insta-worthy photos and new places to sit, markets at various locations and times, more family and children's’ activities, art and murals, outdoor cinemas and more pedestrian friendly areas including better safety and lighting.