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Renew Adelaide cap-in-hand to revive more city buildings

May 25, 2015
North Terrace buildings. Photo: Nat Rogers/InDaily

North Terrace buildings. Photo: Nat Rogers/InDaily

Renew Adelaide will make its case for double the previous year’s funding at tomorrow’s Adelaide City Council meeting, in order to revive more than 20 city buildings.

The not-for-profit, which negotiates short-term, rent-free leases for new businesses to test their ideas in the city, asked for $200,000 to be allocated in the council’s draft 2015-16 budget.

However, only $100,000 – the same amount as the previous financial year – has been allocated.

North Ward Councillor Phillip Martin will bring a compromise motion to the council tomorrow evening, which would bring Renew Adelaide’s 2015-16 council funding to $150,000.

Renew Adelaide general manager Lily Jacobs told InDaily the extra $50,000 would allow Renew Adelaide to revive about 20 properties, as well at two or three historic properties in the city.

However, she said “with $100,000, we’d look at activating 25 properties around the city, and five or six of those would be those really interesting and unique buildings”.

She said buildings in the Central Market district and the western end of Hindley Street were prime candidates for renewal, and that historic buildings were particularly useful for new businesses.

“When we work with those buildings, we usually get a longer period of occupation in exchange for the works,” she said.

“When we activate a shopfront that’s been vacant for six months or a year, the total cost of that, including possibly some signage, might be $1,500 to $2,000.

“But if we look at a building that is in the second-storey, or a basement, or a rooftop that’s been vacant for 10 or 20 years, then its more like more like $12,000 or $15,000 for that.

“There are also more human resources involved in it because it’s a lot more logistically challenging.

“Those buildings … create a really unique offering to the public that can draw people into the city.

“They tend to offer really good opportunities for entrepreneurs to test ideas and get commercial.”

Renew Adelaide chair Steve Maras will make a presentation at tomorrow’s Adelaide City Council meeting.

Martin said the funding shortfall had not come to his attention before the budget was released for consultation, but that he was interested in bolstering the program.

“Anything that can be done to reinvigorate older buildings and have them become again used and thereby protected,” he said.

However, the long-vacant buildings along North Terrace, including the iconic Gawler Chambers building, are are not likely to be part of the program any time soon.

“There is hope for those, but that would be a $500,000 exercise I would think,” said Jacobs.

“Some of the iconic ones that are vacant along North Terrace to make them occupiable even on a short term basis requires quite a lot of building work … to make them safe and habitable.”

Jacobs said reviving heritage buildings of the magnitude that exist along North Terrace would also require funding certainty for Renew Adelaide.

Currently, the organisation has to reapply for funding each year.

Now it is requesting three years of funding certainty to open the possibility of more complex projects.

“I’d love to see some of those (North Terrace buildings) activated,” she said.

“(However) every year I’m running around trying to get the money to keep us going.

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“If we had that longer-term funding it might be possible to get a project together that is part-sponsored by private industry, partly supported by government,” she said.

“It’s probably six to nine months lead time on a project like that.

“We’d need the security that we could carry it out.”

Activating existing city shopfronts

Meanwhile, city businesses are already planning improvements to their shopfronts using an Adelaide City Council grants program which opened today.

Businesses wanting to add visual elements such as signage, external paint, green walls and lighting to their facades can now access up to $6,000 – limited to half the cost of the upgrade – from the council’s ‘Shopfront Improvement Grant Program’.

Owner of the Hey Jupiter café in the East End of the city, French expatriate Christoph Zauner, said he would be applying for $4,000 to give the front of his café a ‘Paris’ theme.

“We’ve got a big wall in front of the café that’s a plain, crappy, greyish colour, so we’re going to tile this … with a big sign in the middle, saying ‘Hey Jupiter’,” he said.

“It’s going to look a little bit like a Paris metro station – we’re going to use the same kind of tiles.

“I always wanted to put a fake wooden façade to make it look like an old shop in Paris, or in Lyon in France.

“The way our shop looks is very important.

“(The renovated façade) should draw people towards us. It should increase business. Also it should make the street look better.

“More people in the street is good for everybody, not just our business.”

The pilot program has a budget of $70,000. Deputy Lord Mayor Houssam Abiad said Adelaide City Council would consider increasing the cap if there were sufficient demand for the grants this time around.

The program also funds removal of shopfront clutter, such as aged roller shutters, unused signage and fixed outdoor dining furniture, and is also available to residents in some selected city streets.

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