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This was published 3 months ago
By Mark Naglazas
Cathedral Square: a shining example of rejuvenating, activating and showcasing one of Perth’s distinct precincts.
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Acity is a collection of villages.
This intriguing idea was dropped on me by Subiaco-based developer Adrian Fini during a conversation about the revitalisation of Perth and the importance of attracting more people to live in the city.
“The neighbourhoods of the great cities of the world are almost as famous as the cities themselves,” continued Fini, who has built a stellar reputation for breathing new life into languishing heritage buildings and activating unloved historic quarters.
“London has Soho and King’s Road and Notting Hill, in Paris you have the Marais and Montmartre and Montparnasse, Rome has Trastevere, New York has Greenwich Village and Washington Square,” he says.
“These neighbourhoods are part of the fabric of their respective cities. If you’re a New Yorker and you haven’t been to the East Village for a while you’ll go there to check out a new restaurant or cafe or boutique. The people who live in these neighbourhoods and the shops and businesses and the history of the place all contributes to its character.”
Since my conversation with the forward-thinking former Western Australian of the Year I’ve been thinking about Perth and its neighbourhoods.
I’m not talking about the Claisebrook, Crawley-Nedlands, East and West Perth and Northbridge, which have been designated “neighbourhoods” by the City of Perth as part of a plan to evolve and celebrate them as distinct communities. They are distinct areas and don’t suffer an identity crisis, even if those identities could do with a bit of a make-over.
My concern is with central Perth, which, for some unfathomable reason is now popularly known as the Central Business District or CBD (CBD is such a peculiarly Australian term that a British colleague of mine at WAtoday had to explain it to her visiting father). When Perth is celebrated or condemned – sadly, this is most of the time – it is usually this corner of the capital that is targeted.
Even though the CBD proper describes a stretch of St George’s Terrace from Barrack Street to the Barracks Arch, where mining giants such as BHP, Rio Tinto and Woodside and other major corporations are headquartered, it has come to stand for the whole shebang – basically everything from Northbridge to the Swan River, from King’s Park to the WACA.
The tastefully restored State Buildings are now the heart of what Adrian Fini’s team have dubbed the East End Arts Precinct.
Indeed, the term CBD looms so large in the consciousnesses of Western Australians it is, I am certain, a major roadblock on the endlessly reconsidered and resurfaced path to the revitalisation of Perth. People dream of living in Le Marais or Barcelona’s El Born or New York’s Williamsburg. Who the hell fantasises about relocating to the Perth CBD?
How inadequate is the term CBD as a description of Perth hit home during a recent cross-town bike ride.
First stop was a bike shop in Murray Street to pump some air in my tyres; next I popped in for a trim at the Ugly Men’s Association Barber & Shave Shop in Fini’s beautifully restored State Buildings (“Appropriate!” I hear you cry); and finally to Offshoot, a coffee shop on the unbelievably buzzy corner of Hay and Irwin Streets in the Hibernian Place precinct that’s a mecca for the doctors and nurses from nearby Royal Perth Hospital. It felt like I was in a real city, not a CBD.
Ugly Men’s Association Barber Shop and Shave: one of several cool indie businesses tucked inside the beautifully restored State Buildings.
Perth is not Paris and never will be, but there’s more to the city than power-dressing corporate types streaming into the gleaming towers at the King’s Park end of the Terrace. And these precincts need to be identified, given a name and showcased.
“Perth still has a strong identity as a CBD,” says Perth History Association and Museum of Perth executive director Reece Harley. “We tore down many beautiful, architecturally significant buildings along St George’s Terrace to establish a business district, and it still holds sway. Unfortunately, Perth is now interchangeable with the Central Business District.
Perth is not Paris and never will be, but there’s more to the city than power-dressing corporate types streaming into the gleaming towers at the King’s Park end of the Terrace.
“We cannot deny the importance of the businesses along St George’s Terrace. It’s the spine, right? It is the beating heart of the Western Australian economy. But it’s not all there is to the city. There are several precincts with very distinct characters and deserve to be better known by Western Australians – especially by those who, understandably, are reluctant to bypass the big shopping centres and come into the city.”
A vivid example of Perth’s distinct precincts or neighbourhoods is what many people are now calling the West End, which begins at the intersections of Hay and Murray Streets and stretches to the Mitchell Freeway.
It includes the recently spruced-up His Majesty’s Theatre (a fortuitous location considering it echos of the world’s most famous West End in London), the arts and until recently fashion hub King Street, the Comedy Lounge, several hotels and the bars, pubs and restaurants of Murray Street that are so vibrant on a Friday and Saturday night it challenges Northbridge.
“The West End has real character,” says Harley. “It’s got some lovely little streets, such as King and Queen Streets, it’s got some lovely heritage buildings and it’s got Raine Square funnelling people underground from the train station into that area.
Raine Square: the vibrant retail precinct that funnels commuters from the train station into the West End.Credit: Jessica Wyld
“Unfortunately, King Street is currently empty because most of the luxury stores have moved into Raine Square. But generally the West End is one of the most exciting precincts in the city right now.
“The newly restored balconies on His Majesty’s are a wonderful gesture by the state government and has given us a whole new way to look at the western end of the city. From those verandahs you can see all those magnificent but sadly neglected upper floors of Hay Street that are crying out to be occupied.”
Of course, the village that will soon be blossoming on Wellington Street will be in and around the city campus of Edith Cowan University and our very own Fame school, WAAPA. In the next few years thousands of students will be streaming into the city, with many of them taking up residence in buildings on Wellington Street and nearby.
Harley believes that once ECU is complete and the train-line sunk it will transform Perth even more profoundly than Elizabeth Quay.
The Comedy Lounge: one of entertainment businesses that is making the West End one of the city’s most identifiable and liveliest precincts. Credit: Mark Naglazas
“Elizabeth Quay is almost like an ornament on the city. It’s a beautiful, high-quality precinct overlooking the water. But I really think in terms of the movement of people and the life of the city the university precinct will be the more important functional change to the way that Perth works. It’s going to bring in thousands of students, which is what has been missing from the city.”
There is also plenty happening on the other side of William Street, which has been dubbed by the team at Fini’s Hesperia the East End Arts Precinct.
According to Sarah Booth, who is managing director of Spacemarket and in charge of community development at Hesperia, they came up with the idea for calling the eastern side of William Street an arts precinct because located within its bounds are a number of important contemporary art spaces as well as several owner-operated independent businesses, such as Lo-Fi Butter Goods, the bookshop Edicole and Dada Records, some great food – Booth can’t stop raving about noodle shop Hifumiya – and hands-down the coolest coffee shop in the city, Howard’s Groove (or so I’m told over and over).
“When you look down at this area from above it doesn’t look like much is going on,” says Booth over coffee at the Lawson’s Flats, which has been gorgeously renovated by Adrian Fini’s son Alessio and now is a club that has opened its arms to a very different crowd from those who are normally invited into such establishments (on the day I popped in it was filled with women in their twenties furiously conducting business).
The historic heart of Perth: this tasteful makeover of the historic heart of Perth is providing a sanctuary for visitors to the capital.
“But when you get to ground level you see there is a lot of activity. There are some incredible restaurants and some amazing independent businesses. And it has some of Perth’s most beautiful heritage architecture. We didn’t invent a village: we found one. So we decided to look 500 metres on either side of the State Buildings and call it the East End Arts Precinct,” explains Booth.
Booth says that if you bother to look you find will similar villages or neighbourhoods all over the city. “I went to QV1 the other day for a meeting and was astonished. Hundreds of people were in the food court eating lunch. It was incredible. I’m sure you would find such hives of activity all over the city.”
The problem for Booth – and the problem for the City of Perth, the state government and anyone else concerned with the vitality of our capital – is that most of these villages evaporate at knock-off time. They’re pop-up villages.
Some areas, such as the bars in Brookfield Place or the pubs in the West End – see how good it feels to use terms other than the CBD – will hold workers for a few hours after they turn off their computers, but generally the city empties quickly and is a shell of what it is like in the mornings and at lunchtime.
Booth, who whose passionate plea at a recent ABC-hosted forum for the City of Perth and the state government to do more to fill its vacant buildings galvanised the audience, believes that the thousands of workers who come into the city every day and enjoy spaces such as the food court in QV1 and Brookfield Place present a wonderful opportunity to permanently increase the population of the city and create the kind of vibrant inner-city we seek out on our holidays to Europe and Asia.
Central Park: even between the gleaming towers are places of community and connection.Credit: Jessica Wyld
“People – especially young people – are already coming in and want to be here. We just have to make it attractive and affordable for them to stay. The city and the state own empty and under-utilised buildings that can easily be converted into living spaces. It just requires the determination and imagination to make it happen. It will mean those villages continue to live long after the sun goes down.”
I was curious what the man charged with selling the city, Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas, thinks of the CBD moniker that has slipped into usage in the last few years (those of us who remember when the 18-storey T & G Building was on the corner of St George’s Terrace and William Street used to say we were going to “town”).
“I’m not bothered by the term CBD, but you are right in saying it doesn’t describe what’s going outside of the Terrace, even if retail is also covered by business. It think the word ‘city’ covers it, but it is worth considering fresh ideas for a name previously represented by the CBD. Standing still is never an option,” the Lord Mayor tells me.
“But it is not something that the city can impose on people. It needs to grow organically, as it has done in places like New York. When you have people coming together in a particular area and become proud of where they live they will latch on to a name they feel comfortable with. They will tell us what they want to be called, not other way around.”
Grand Lane: this laneway off Barrack Street is one of many hidden gems that give central Perth character.Credit: Jessica Wyld
Zempilas, like Harley, believes that the city is about to be shaken up by the arrival of thousands of students.
“Parks and gardens and architecture are wonderful, but everyone knows what really makes a city are people. And we will soon have all these creative, enquiring minds dropping into the heart of our city and injecting life and energy. It’s what great cities are,” continues the Lord Mayor.
“It will also give Yagan Square a second chance. That and the redesign. It means that across the road from Yagan Square there will be ten thousand young people who do go exploring the alleyways and love discovering little shops. I’m not sure what it will be called, but a new neighborhood is about to spring up on Wellington Street. They will give it their own name and it will stick.”
Zempilas also believes another village-in-progress, Elizabeth Quay, is about to take a leap forward with the arrival of thousands of workers who will occupy the new Chevron building.
“As of today Elizabeth Quay is 20 per cent occupied. In a month that number will leap to 35 per cent because of Chevron. Beyond that, there’s two towers that have reached their heights but are still to be fitted out. That will take it to about 60 or 65 percent occupancy. And then there’s the two remaining towers that will come online in the next two to three years.
“The filling up of Elizabeth Quay and the arrival of thousands of ECU and WAAPA students at the other end of the city will be transformational. They will create the neighbourhoods or villages you are talking about. They will grow organically. The people who live and work and study there will give it character. It won’t need the City of Perth to do that.”
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