Maitland’s riverbank could prove too unstable to build an affordable, vibrant residential precinct that would rejuvenate the Heritage Mall, it has been revealed.
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Maitland City Council’s plans to rejuvenate the mall – named The Levee – have focused on creating links to the river, but Hunter Land CEO Graham Burns said major residential redevelopment would need expensive pylons.
Mr Burns, who oversaw the Minerals Council of Australia project on High Street, said while Maitland had continued to build the levee up since the 1800s, it was all resting on loam.
“Any major development would need pylons 15 metres deep and that means money,” he said.
Mr Burns said residential development was the key and such costs would hurt the cause.
“To revive the retail centre we must extend
the operating hours and to do that we need people – we need residents – we want a city that
doesn’t shut at five o’clock,” he said.
Hunter Land had been forced to carry out extensive foundation work beside the Minerals Council office, that forms the business village on High Street and which was originally meant to be apartments.
“The market just wouldn’t have paid the price we would have built them [the apartments] for,” Mr Burns said.
“You don’t get any more rent or money for it and it’s [the pylons] just a cost the developer has to bear.”
The tide could be turning, slowly.
“There is some demand as the [Riverview Apartments] have demonstrated and I think it’s great to see that change of usage,” he said.
Eight of the apartments in the old Flash Palace sold within a week, off the plan, and are expected to be completed next year.
Mr Burns said there needed to be more residential apartments in and around The Levee.
Such challenges and more are expected to be dealt with at a forum on the revitalisation of the city centre that councillors endorsed on Tuesday night.
Mr Burns said it might be cost prohibitive to build new housing projects along the levee, but that shouldn’t hold back the mall revitalisation and some of council’s other goals.
“What council really needs to concentrate on is encouraging usage within the existing structures,” he said.
“Quite simply, if you knock the back out of these shops, which are used as storage, it will achieve that connection to the river.”