by Shane Sody
Without any public consultation, or any electoral mandate, the State Government has done a private deal with one of Australia’s largest property developers, to put a 38-storey office tower on Park 26 of your Park Lands.
Dominating the skyline. Pic: SA Government
The Premier, Peter Malinauskas, says State Cabinet has agreed that the Walker Corporation can build one of Adelaide’s biggest office towers on what’s left of the Open Public space on your former Festival Plaza. Formal planning approval is expected to be granted later this year.
Premier Peter Malinauskas unveils the proposed new Festival Plaza tower.(ABC News: Rory McClaren)
Nevertheless, the Premier is already seeing pushback.
Both the Lord Mayor, Jane Lomax-Smith, and the Liberal Opposition’s Michelle Lensink have questioned the need for more office space when, according to Property Council data released in February, Adelaide has the highest rate of office vacancy of any CBD in the country at 19.3 per cent.
However, as the Greens’ Robert Simms has pointed out, the commercial viability of the proposed tower is not the point.
"There's only one thing worse than a skyscraper towering over Parliament House and that's two skyscrapers," said Greens Planning Spokesperson Robert Simms MLC.
"This 38-storey monstrosity will totally overshadow the Plaza. It's a sad indictment on the Labor Party that yet another office tower is the best they can come up with for this iconic site.
"I hope that taxpayers will not be asked to subsidise this capture of our public space and the Government must reveal how much the Walker Corporation will be paying to lease this site.”
Greens MLC Robert Simms
“It's very saddening that once again, our planning system is serving the interests of developers rather than the community."
Your Plaza, Your Park Lands, Privatised.
New office towers can be built anywhere. Owners of other land in prime locations of the CBD presumably would be disappointed that the State Government’s deal with Walker Corporation effectively devalues their own properties. In effect, the State Government has decided that no site in the existing CBD is worthy of this sort of massive development investment.
Neither the Premier nor the Planning Minister Nick Champion have acknowledged that the former Festival Plaza is still legally part of your Park Lands.
Privatisation of the public sphere seems not to be perceived as any issue. Mr Champion has told InDaily that all of the office space would be “private commercial space”.
Here’s how the story was covered by InDaily: https://www.indaily.com.au/news/adelaide/2024/04/09/questions-over-second-festival-plaza-tower-amid-high-cbd-vacancy-rates
Here’s how the story was covered by the ABC: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-09/walker-corporation-skyscraper-announced-for-festival-plaza/103684974
Background
Few people realise that the Festival Plaza is part of the Adelaide Park Lands. Yet in 2012, it was given away to a billionaire for a 27-storey office tower, shops and a car park. Demolition started in 2018, then paused as the property developer (Lang Walker) haggled to get more money out of South Australian taxpayers, to increase his profits.
Here’s the 2015 story about how it unfolded:
Both sides of State politics share blame for this. The initial deal was done by the former Labor Government of Jay Weatherfill. The Liberal Government of Steven Marshall could have walked away from the deal in 2018, but allowed it to proceed.
In 2020 the Liberal Government even increased the size of the giveaway to the Walker Corporation, increasing taxpayer commitment to more than $250 million and agreed to reduce the number of trees in the Walker Corporation plans. (Subscriber-only link to News Ltd story 21 April 2020)
In September 2022, Walker Corporation began a renewed push to get a second skyscraper approved, to replace a previously-proposed three-storey shopping area.
Walker Corporation’s wish was granted by the State Government on 9 April 2024.
Construction of the first tower under way in September 2022. Image: Tony Lewis/InDaily
What Could Have Been
The Plaza could have been easily and cheaply returned to your Park Lands.
A design competition for this purpose was run in 2015, by the then-leader of the Greens Party in SA, the Hon. Mark Parnell:
Design by Arnie Blanden - just one of the several winning designs in the competition hosted by Greens MLC Mark Parnell.
The former State Government ignored this Park Land-friendly, low-cost design and instead did multi-million dollar deals with the operators of the Adelaide Casino, and Melbourne-based Walker Corporation to erect a casino extension encroaching onto Elder Park. another high-rise tower block behind it and separate two-level food courts plus stores. In 2024, the food courts and stores were ditched, to be replaced instead with a 38-storey office tower.
In addition to losing great swathes of our public open space, taxpayers have had to pay $250 million towards the developer’s costs!
