Riverbank Authority replaced by stakeholder group
The Marshall Government will replace the Riverbank Authority with an advisory committee populated by nearby property owners and occupiers and the city council.
Plans released by the previous government for the development of the Riverbank precinct.
Roger Cook AM, one of the founders of the Australian commercial real estate giant Colliers International, will chair the Riverbank Entertainment Precinct Advisory Committee (REPAC).
Cook has a long history in the development and real estate industries and has served as chairman of the board of the Motor Accident Commission.
The committee will report directly to the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Local Government Stephan Knoll, unlike its predecessor, which exerted a more direct managerial role over the Riverbank Precinct.
Knoll will appoint a representative each from SkyCity Casino, the InterContinental Hotel, Adelaide Convention Centre, Adelaide Festival Centre, the Adelaide Oval Stadium Management Authority, the Adelaide City Council and Renewal SA to sit on the committee.
REPAC will advise on major capital projects, the development of a Precinct Master Plan, coordinating events, signage, lighting, branding and marketing for the precinct, which extends from Bowden to Hackney.
“The Committee will be charged with providing advice about how best to maximise the massive economic and job creation potential that exists within our Riverbank precinct,” Knoll said in a statement to InDaily.
“(REPAC constitutes) the bringing together of key stakeholders that, like South Australians, want to see Adelaide’s Riverbank precinct thrive.
“There is currently over $1 billion of private sector development underway in and around the Adelaide Riverbank precinct.”
He said that activating and promoting the new Festival Plaza “to help it reach its potential once complete” would be a key goal of the new committee.
“The Festival Plaza is our answer to Federation Square in Melbourne,” he said.
The membership of the new body is a significant shift from the makeup of the Riverbank Authority, which was responsible for managing consultation with stakeholders like the casino and the council, but was independent from them.
The Riverbank Authority board was made up of chair Andrew McEvoy, landscape architect Malcolm Snow, Renewal SA chief executive John Hanlon, StudyAdelaide chief executive Karyn Kent and physicist Professor Tanya Monro.
McEvoy last year urged the Weatherill Government to strip the “petulant” Adelaide City Council of all of its powers over the Riverbank, after councillors criticised a lighting project it had developed.
REPAC will be established under the Urban Renewal Authority Act.
