Redfern ‘murder mall’ reinvented as $500 million Surry Hills Village

Redfern shopping centre, or Surry Hills Village as it is now called, was sometimes called the “murder mall”.

That was overkill, said resident Lesley Holden, although she did recall a request over the Coles PA in the 1990s calling “security to freezer” to break up a fight between two men near the meat section.

SJB architects Emily Wombwell and Adam Haddow (centre) with developer Allan Vidor at the reopened Surry Hills shopping centre.Credit: Rhett Wyman

After the centre closed four years ago, an estimated $500 million mixed redevelopment by the TOGA Group with a design team led by Sydney architect Adam Haddow is nearly complete. Coles, Harris Farm and Blooms the Chemist are now open.

The new village is more Rome than Redfern. A grand vaulted ceiling welcomes patrons arriving via Cleveland Street, the boundary between Redfern and Surry Hills.

Haddow, a director at SJB and a resident of the area like many on the design team, said it was the kind of development that every local area needed if the NSW government was going to increase density in Sydney.

“It’s got a good mix. It’s got local amenities in terms of supermarkets [and] destination things in terms of restaurants and hotels. It’s got office space,” he said.

“[But] it’s not only [for a] nine to five. It’s got a hotel, it’s got residences.”

SJB architects Emily Wombwell with Adam Haddow. Haddow says the vaulted entrance really lets visitors know they have arrived.Credit: Rhett Wyman

TOGA Group managing director Allan Vidor said the most important decision had been to ditch the original plan for the renovation, comprising 90 per cent residential use and retaining the old shopping centre’s Coles supermarket.

“We looked at the site, and said, ‘This is a chance to create a vibrant mixed development,’ ” said Vidor, who bought the site in 2015. That resulted in the addition of offices, restaurants, as well as a hotel, The Eve, which has a rooftop pool. A range of restaurants and cafes will open across the new village, including a new Greek restaurant, Olympus, due to open this year.

The community was concerned the development would result in gentrification rather than renewal, he said, as Redfern Coles had been a focal point for the community.

Holden recalled the old shopping centre had “all the charm of an amenities block”.

In contrast, the new 11,520-square-metre site includes features that have in the past won SJB and Haddow a range of top industry awards.

The arches, brickwork and gates are similar to those in Haddow’s award-winning 69-square-metre home on a 30-square-metre block in Waterloo Street, Surry Hills.

SJB has also won a series of awards for mixed-use villages with apartments, including collaborations with other architecture practices at Quay Quarter Lanes and Newcastle’s East End.

To create a series of liveable villages clustered around a central garden, Surry Hills Village’s architects used different coloured bricks and heights.

There are 122 apartments, a mix of four-, six- and seven-storey blocks, plus six three-bedroom terraces on the west of the site, as well as a six-storey commercial building with salt and pepper bricks wrapped around a mass timber core that connects to retail and restaurants, cafes and bars.

The old bank on the corner of Cleveland and Baptist streets is being restored by architecture practice Studio Prineas, and adapted to link to the rest of the precinct.

Landscape architect Sacha Coles, who also worked on the project as the design director of Aspect Studios, sees the project as stitching together a diverse community, building on its working-class history and cementing the Coles’ role as a meeting point.

Redfern is home to twice as many rich people as the Australian average and twice as many poor, as well as a large Indigenous population. Public housing neighbours the new centre to the south.

The centre’s courtyard is now busy with locals, arriving by foot or in wheelchairs and motorised scooters.

Dogs of varying pedigrees are tied up near landscaped gardens in the supermarket’s courtyard. Tradies and locals are sitting on the landscaped steps and seats in Wunderlich Lane (named for an old factory on the site that once produced pressed tin ceilings).

Holden said the replacement of the once dodgy parking lot at the southern end with a pocket park has lifted the area.

“When there is attention to sustainability and design, as well as landscaping and tree canopy, everyone in the community benefits … And after nearly four years of construction, the area is buzzing on a Saturday morning.”

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