Off the Record: Flinders Uni rumoured as key anchor tenant for Walker Corp’s Festival Plaza office tower

In this week’s Off The Record, a high-profile name is linked to the controversial Festival Plaza tower – while a City Councillor’s had a successful dinner party.

In this week’s Off The Record, rumours of a key anchor tenant for the Festival Plaza office tower, former Reds owner Greg Griffin returns to familiar ground, and the City Councillor Anne Moran has a dinner party.

Flinders Plaza?

Property billionaire Lang Walker’s surprise declaration that construction would start by mid-year on a 27-storey office tower at Festival Plaza caused surprisingly few ripples.

Walker’s revelation was part of a front-page Advertiser article detailing the launch of Walker Corp’s $3bn satellite city north of Adelaide, Riverlea, at Buckland Park.

Political and business circles have been abuzz with speculation about the reason for Walker’s confidence, with a key anchor tenant said to be on the brink of signing.

Like Riverlea, the Festival Plaza development has been controversial for most of the past decade. The former Labor government in 2012 gave Walker Corporation exclusive rights to develop the precinct and in 2016 signed a development agreement for the carpark and Plaza, expiring in 2026.

There have been numerous fits of speculation the tower was about to be built because a major tenant had been secured, only for this to prove unfounded. Likewise, there has been persistent speculation Walker would wait until the brink of the agreement’s expiry to start construction.

Latest designs submitted for approval of the Lang Walker building, behind Parliament House. Picture: Supplied

As Walker said on February 25, the 1560-space underground carpark is almost complete. Following that, he says, work will start on the tower.

The speculation is the reason for Walker’s confidence is that Flinders University is close to signing on as the office tower’s anchor tenant.

A key reason is said to be the Bedford Park-based uni wants to join Adelaide and UniSA and have a North Tce campus. This capitalises on the newly installed rail link between Flinders and the Adelaide Railway Station. It is not known whether Flinders would have naming rights or how many floors the university would take. The fate of the uni’s Victoria Square building, adjacent the State Administration Centre, is not known.

Apart from the dreadful politics of MPs moving into swanky new offices, it also would make some sense to shift some offices from the rabbit-warren-like Parliament House, which adjoins Festival Plaza to the south.

It is, however, most unlikely that Treasurer Rob Lucas would agree to such expenditure in his final Budget before retiring. His replacement, however, might have different ideas.

Back in the game

Former Adelaide United owner and chairman Greg Griffinis back in the world game. Griffin will become president of Adelaide City, a former national league powerhouse that now plies its trade in the SA National Premier League.

Griffin told Off the Record the appointment would be temporary and he is helping the club through a transition phase. For many years, City has been presided over by the D’Ottavi family, which has poured in money to the club through its company BEST Bricks and Pavers. Family patriarch Bob D’Ottavi died in 2015 and Dino D’Ottavi is current president.

Griffin said the club was moving to a member-based model as the D’Ottavis stepped back.

“It’s just about paving the way for a seamless transition,’’ Griffin said.

There has been speculation City could return to the national stage if a second division below the A-League is formed but Griffin said that would be a football decision for the club in the future.

Greg Griffin is becoming new Adelaide City president (AAP Image/David Mariuz) NO ARCHIVING

Ducks in a row

Long-serving Adelaide City councillor and parklands campaigner Anne Moran had good reason to be happy on Tuesday.

Not only did all of her counterparts vote to block moves by the Adelaide Crows to build new headquarters within the city’s verdant fringes, several joined her for supper afterwards.

Moran has been trying for months to get elected members to share meals she cooks at her North Adelaide home and takes to Adelaide Town Hall.

Anne Moran’s Facebook post about the Adelaide Crows decision. Picture: Facebook

With infighting marring many meetings, she has wanted councillors to patch up their differences over a bowl of food and glass of wine.

There has been a low turnout from members of the Team Adelaide faction, which successfully pushed to end three-course dinners traditionally enjoyed by city councillors before their meetings.

Those meals were held in a formal dining room, with white linen, waiting staff and, by all accounts, reasonably decent wine.

Moran was particularly upset by their demise, prompting her to come up with her regular home-cooked alternatives.

This week’s offering of coq au vin was shared with Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor, acting chief executive Clare Mockler and fellow councillors Franz Knoll, Robert Simms, Phillip Martin, Helen Donovan and Greg Mackie.

Moran was so delighted with the evening’s events she later took to Facebook to congratulate Team Adelaide which “finally listened and joined the independents in saying no to the Adelaide Football Club building private commercial buildings on the parklands”.

She did not mention the motion was put forward by the leader of Team Adelaide, Alexander Hyde, who called a special meeting to have it debated.

– Colin James

Stay away

Look, we get it. Honestly, we do. No one likes journalists. But surely it’s a bit far for parliament to start issuing orders telling us to keep our distance. Especially, as Off the Record has previously reported, that the state’s politicians have a free pass to ignore social distancing when on the floor of parliament.

Yesterday, Off the Record, and all parliamentary journalists received a message from Lauren Williams, Serjeant-at-Arms and Clerk Assistant in the House of Assembly.

“Feedback has been received that some members of the media have not been practising social distancing when approaching Members for an interview or when attending press conferences in Parliament House,’’ the note said.

“Please note that a current condition of entry to Parliament House is that social distancing be complied with and that unavoidable close proximity to others be minimised.”

Except if you are an MP it seems.

Saintly direction

St Peter’s Girls is looking for a new member for their board of governors, to sit alongside Jeremy, James, James, Andy, Tim, Paul, Bronwyn and Michelle and give guidance on the school’s future direction.

While the pitch for the role, being delivered through Hender Consulting, doesn’t mention gender, you reckon with that sort of tilt at a school designed to empower young women it might not be a bad idea to get another woman or two on board, excuse the pun.

Not that the current board members aren’t well credentialed, with Andy Keough a distinguished leader in the defence sector, now with Saab Australia, and Bronwyn Corbet a director of institutional banking at ANZ.

At Off the Record we strive to be helpful, so gladly suggest Sally Zou could be in the running. The formerly generous donor to the Liberal party and big fan of the school’s alumnus and former foreign minister Julie Bishop is rumoured to have directed some of her largesse in the school’s direction after dialling back the political donations, which caused plenty of not altogether welcome publicity.

As the head of her own mining outfit and being well connected at the state and federal level politically, Zou would arguably fit the criteria for “high levels of commercial and political acumen complemented by exceptional leadership, communication, negotiation, governance and stakeholder management capacity’’.

-Cameron England

Entrepreneur Sally Zou has a connection to St Peter’s Girls. Picture: Jo-Anna Robinson

Swear by it

Entrepreneur Andre Eikmeier, who co-founded online wine retailer Vinomofo, is having another crack at world domination, aiming to raise up to $1 million to build a business which will in turn “help save the f**king world”.

The salty language is on trend – yes the mofo in Vinomofo does mean that – but this effort is more about “keep cups” than wine glasses.

Through equity crowd-funding site Birchal, Eikmeier and his Good Empire team are trying to raise the money to build an app that will “gamify” challenges that in turn have a benefit for the environment.

If you’re not up with the latest start-up speak, “gamify” basically means to turn a task into a game, as the name suggests, making it fun and more compelling to do. Then you get to farm it out for likes on the social media of your choice.

“As your impact grows, you level up and unlock status, achievements, new features and even real-world rewards,’’ the pitch deck says. “You create your own challenges and build teams and communities, become leaders and true influencers of impact and change’’.

VINOMOFO co-founder Andre Eikmeier

Naturally there’s a profit to be made for all this good work, with an ad- and fee-based revenue stream envisaged, but hey, if you can do well while doing good, why not?

Good Empire is targeting a “maximum” of $1m from 1000 “super users”, with the funding round to kick off on March 11. The platform launch is pencilled in for July this year.

Convincing people to hand over $1m of their hard-earned will be the first challenge, but Eikmeier, who parted ways with Vinomofo in 2018, is nothing if not energetic.

– Cameron England

Originally published as Off the Record: Flinders Uni rumoured as key anchor tenant for Walker Corp’s Festival Plaza office tower