“This council is absolutely resolute - our $1.6 billion Civic Place project is going ahead,” Lord Mayor, Paul Garrard, said in his presentation at the annual State of The City address.
“Today I announce that the planning approvals for stage one are set to be processed this year, with construction to start in 2011 and completion in 2013,” he said.
“Council is in discussion with each of the remaining Darcy Street owners. We are negotiating in good faith, but we will not back away, from the hard-headed decisions needed to ensure this mammoth project gets underway.”
Cr Garrard said the Civic Place project was central to providing desperately needed commercial and residential space to the city, providing some 30,000 square metres of commercial office space to be released in 2013 and another 40,000 square metres between 2016 and 2018.
Cr Garrard did not mention that council’s December 2009 quarterly report noted that the project’s developer, Grocon, had presented stage one of the project valued at $400 million, to a councillor workshop.
Construction of stage one is understood to occur on the Smith St frontage of the site, between Sydney Water’s head office and Macquarie St, and would include council facilities as well as commercial and retail development.
All aboard for the Sydney CBD
The much talked about $8.3 billion West Metro, an underground rail link between Westmead and Central, which could have opened up the Camellia, Silverwater and Sydney Olympic Park precincts to significant job opportunities, is no more.
The new Metropolitan Transport Plan has replaced it with the $4.5 billion Western Express CityRail Service, a dedicated, aboveground, rail track that bypasses these locations.
Also, the plan does not envisage construction of the “missing link” between Parramatta and Epping that would connect Western Sydney with the booming job centres in Ryde and the lower North Shore – the Global Economic Corridor.
The plan is Sydney CBD-centric. It aims to achieve faster and more frequent services from Springwood and Richmond, through Blacktown and Parramatta, to the Sydney CBD, with a goal of up to 50 per cent more services and 17 per cent more passengers on the CityRail network, on an average weekday.
The service would mean 5000 more seats from Parramatta in peak hour and more than 10,000 extra seats an hour from Western Sydney to the city, with significant time savings from Western Sydney to Wynyard.
Travelling time improvements from Springwood would 17 minutes, from Richmond 15 minutes, from Penrith nine minutes and from Parramatta six minutes. Also, another two services to the CBD from Cabramatta, via Granville, would be quicker.
An extra five peak-hour trains would be added from Parramatta to the city.
A five kilometre tunnel would be constructed from Eveleigh, near Redfern, to Wynyard, which would cater to the new service from Western Sydney.
Experts said the plan is designed to centralise jobs growth in the Sydney CBD, at the expense of the major job centres in the metropolitan area, although the South-West Rail Link could funnel workers into the Parramatta CBD, through the Cumberland Line.
Growth reduced by 63 per cent
Parramatta City Council disputes a statement that the city’s jobs growth would be cut by 63 percent, in the Christie Report, an independent assessment of Sydney’s transport plans, partly sponsored by The Sydney Morning Herald.
Instead of an additional 30,000 workers in the CBD, by 2036, the figure has been reduced to 11,053. The government’s Transport Data Centre, the body that contributed the initial figure in the Metropolitan Strategy in 2005, provided this figure.
The Christie Report noted the government’s latest employment forecast, “quietly” released last December, now envisages a growth figure of only 27 per cent in the CBD in the 30 years between 2006 and 2036, instead of a dramatic 73 per cent boost.
Council says the growth of 27 per cent is “factually wrong”.
“The revised forecasts from the NSW Transport Data Centre about Parramatta, published in the Christie Report-Herald article, are factually wrong (as) council’s own forecasts show that Parramatta could add between 30,000 and 40,000 new jobs by 2031,” a spokesperson said.
“This is also supported by a study undertaken by WSROC (the Western Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils) and the UWS Urban Research Centre, last year, saying Parramatta will likely do better than the targets in the Metro Strategy”.
The Parramatta-based UWS Urban Research Centre noted in its 390-page North-West and West-Central Sydney Employment Strategies document noted the Regional Task Force, a partnership between the Department of Planning and Parramatta City Council, which followed the release of the Metropolitan Strategy, “bullishly” increased the 2031 job forecast for Parramatta from 41,500 to 70,000.
It seems the well-publicised “bullish” 30,000 additional jobs, by 2036, has been “quietly” reduced to 11,053.
Is the issue that planners were over-optimistic in their assessment, or jobs forecast for Parramatta are going elsewhere in the metropolitan area?
The Department of Transport’s Transport Data Centre, had not replied to a query seeking clarification by the deadline for this column.
Rise in office vacancies
Despite solid demand for quality office space, vacancy rates in Parramatta have risen in the six months to January 2010, according to the Property Council’s latest Office Market Report.
Parramatta office vacancies increased from 9.6 per cent to 9.8 per cent over the period, driven by overall demand of -1,631sqm.
However these figures mask sustained demand for the upper grades of space.
“The Parramatta CBD is a tale of two cities: solid demand for quality office space and negative demand for lower grade stock,” said NSW Acting Executive Director Glenn Byres.
“The kick back up to 9.8 per cent is a concern given Parramatta office space vacancies topped 10 per cent this time last year.
“The good news is that Parramatta’s A and B Grade office buildings continue to outperform lower grade stock.
“Vacancies in A Grade stock remain very tight at just 2.4 percent – consistent with the result from six months ago and continuing a strong trend in recent years.
“A big concern is the spike in vacancy rates for C Grade buildings, which are primarily home to small businesses.
“It shows NSW needs to continue to chart a course to economic recovery and put in place policies that offer the hope of sustained growth and prosperity.”
Mr Byres said 2,967sqm of new space is due to enter the market in 2010, with no further supply scheduled after that.
North Ryde is now the ninth biggest office market in the country, bigger than Parramatta.
Mercure pipped at the post
The Mercure Parramatta was pipped at the post by the Novotel Sydney Olympic Park hotel as the best performing property managed by Accor Hotels and Resorts, in Western Sydney, in 2009.
“Novotel Sydney Olympic Park does consistently well and Pullman Sydney Olympic Park was the fastest improver from 2008,” said Accor spokesperson, Peter Hook.
“Grand Mercure Hills Lodge in the Hills, is very strong in business times, and Formule 1 hotels are relatively recession proof, with Enfield and Wentworthville varying little in occupancy over the past four years.”
Mr Hook said Accor’s hotels in Western Sydney were forecast to record their best occupancies since 2007/early 2008 thanks to a revival in conference and corporate travel, growth in events and the lack of new supply.
Accor Hotels and Resorts has expanded its operations in Western Sydney, with two new hotels coming online in February – the Mercure Liverpool, adjoining the Liverpool Catholic Club, and the Novotel Rooty Hill, formerly the Holiday Inn Rooty Hill.
Accor has Pullman, Ibis, Novotel, Mercure and Formule 1 properties across the region. The Pullman Sydney Olympic Park is Western Sydney’s only 5-star hotel.
Firm ranked highly
ThomsonAdsett, an architectual firm with seven offices in Australia, including one in Parramatta, and others in Dubai, Hong Kong and Jakarta, has been ranked 25th in the world on the basis of its profitability and the number of architects employed.
Established Parramatta firm, Glanville Architects, merged with the Sydney office of ThomsonAdsett, in June 2009, and located its NSW operations to larger premises in Parramatta. Charles Glanville is the managing director, of ThomsonAdsett New South Wales.
Glanville Architects, which was established in 1976, prides itself on being a multi-disciplinary practice and is particularly known as being a leader in the design of educational facilities.
The new firm won the Catholic Education Office contract for a $40 million project, at Westmead, which includes demolition, alterations and additions to Catherine McAuley and Parramatta Marist high schools, and the construction of a primary school for 420 students and an out-of-school-hours centre for 50 students.
Locals prepared to try new venues
People may well be creatures of habit but when it comes to dining out locals are prepared to try establishments other than their favourite café or restaurant in Parramatta.
Two of the findings in a survey conducted by Parramatta City Council, showed that 78 per cent of respondents to found council’s Parramatta Dining Guide “useful” and 98 per cent were prompted to try a new venue among the 300 promoted in the publication, in the Eat Street precinct, elsewhere in the CBD and the suburbs.
Respondents preferred eating in the evenings, rather than at lunchtime. After 5pm on weekends accounted to 48 per cent of respondents, with 28 per cent on weekdays; 61 per of all respondents chose to dine with friends, partner or a spouse.
The most popular age group was 25-34 years of age, with 31 per cent of respondents.
The survey found that 80 per cent of respondents lived within a 10-kilometre radius of the Parramatta CBD, with 70 per cent of all respondents living in local government areas north of and including LGAs along an east-west axis, through the CBD.
Some 47 per cent of respondents had dined out in the Parramatta local government area up to six times in the six months prior to completing the survey, with 31 per cent dining between 11-20-plus times.
Regarding the experience of dining in Parramatta, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest rating, 42 per cent of respondents gave it a rating of 8; a further 32 per cent rated it at 9 and 10.
“So join us for a meal in Parramatta,” said Lord Mayor, Paul Garrard, in the 2010 Parramatta Dining Guide, which has a print run of 70,000 copies.
Council’s figures show the city’s hospitality sector contributes $138 million annually to Parramatta’s economy.
The survey was conducted between November 2008 and February 2009. Respondents were 275 readers of the 2009 publication, who responded to a council online questionnaire.
Film festival ‘on a roll’
The 2009 Arab Film Festival at Riverside Theatres,in July, the sixth to be held, and the first tour of four interstate capitals, have described as a success by festival co-ordinator, Mouna Zaylah, at the Information and Cultural Exchange (ICE) office in Parramatta.
Audience figures for the festival were up by 20 per cent, with approximately 40 per cent from non-Arabic-speaking backgrounds. One-third of the patrons came from as far afield as Inner Sydney, Eastern Suburbs and the North Shore, with interstate visitors from Brisbane.
Ms Zaylah was pleased with the festival’s first interstate tour, which took place in November to Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane and Adelaide. She said the back-to-back event this year would occur in July supported by a national marketing campaign.
“We have a strong organisation and committee whose aim is to make the event more and more sustainable. We are on a roll,” she said.
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