[COM] Festival Plaza Tower 1 | 115m | 27 Levels | Office

[Nort]

agree about the Weatherill era, he was a great Premier. Rebuilding Adelaide Oval in particular has been the most transformational project for this city in decades.

I don't think this is true, Adelaide Oval and the push towards renewables was kick-started by the Rann/Foley government. I feel that the Weatherill Govt. brought nothing new to the table. In fact, I would argue they were quite dysfunctional.

Anyways, back to the topic. I think the new tower looks fantastic. A quick poll in The Advertiser article was around 66% in favour of the development, 34% against. Of course, the majority of the comments were very negative, the usual soapbox kinda stuff.

It got a kick-start in the Rann era, but the Weatherill govt definitely picked up the ball and enthusiastically ran with it. Especially after the state blackout, it would have been very easy to fall back onto old fashioned solutions, but they looked at the studies of what caused the blackout, what could have avoided it, and supported schemes like the big battery. If the Weatherill government had got one more term and really got things like the tram expansion going I think they would be a lot more celebrated.

[bigdog69]

Amazing! Does anyone know who the architect is for this new building??!!?

[ozisnowman]

Dear Fellow Sensational Adelaide Members

Its time we stood up and voice our opinions to the SA Planning Commission - yesterdays news articles eg 7 News, 9 News etc noted that the public will be able to comment on the plans etc during the final planning stage (so it sounds like nothing yet has been finalized/approved). Please email your views/opinions to [email protected] and [email protected]

We need to show Frank Pangello and the Greens that you are a vocal minority that are holding back this state - SAY NO MORE TO NIMBYS.

Talk about Ghost Tower, Legoland really - as noted by many in the forum already Adelaide is full of run down, old and unattractive office space that no-one wants to lease. What they fail to see is that many companies are moving to net zero or green star ratings and want energy efficient, spacious, modern and functional office spaces that have the latest energy and safety standards.

This plan should be applauded and more voice should be raised to upgrade/re-develop the old hyatt and riverside buildings which now look out of place. Pity the convention centres too were developed as a hodge-podge of buildings rather than a retail/tourist as well as convention centre complex.

Cheers

[dbl96]

It's also interesting to hear the media say 'one of the tallest' and not the 'tallest'.

Possibly this originates in the government press release. I can see why they would want to avoid bandying about the fact that this will be the tallest, given how controversial the tower already is.

Re the comment "Ghost Tower".. If there is no demand for office space, then why would Walker Corp be planning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a development like this. Adelaide does have the highest office vacancy rate in the country, though so much of it are old and run down office buildings which no one wants to work in and is unable to meet today’s standards. So many should be converted into apartments, short term accommodation or just simply knocked down. The Da Costa building would be a great candidate for conversion into some snazzy apartments.

Basically, the answer to your rhetorical question is that the government will likely provide Walker with the pre-commitments required to get this tower off the ground. I'm sure it is all part of the mysterious dealings that have been going on behind the scenes. We already knew back last year that the government was in discussions with Walker regarding the potential relocation of staff from the State Administration Centre to fill a second Festival Plaza tower.

That's likely the quid pro quo here. The State Government gets the revenue for giving Walker development rights on public land. In return, Walker gets the sure tenant they need to get finance to build their tower. A fully private proposal on private land could never compete with such a sweet deal.

Yes, it is true that there is a lot of low quality stock which should be converted to other uses, but for whatever reason, that isn't happening. The building owners prefer to let these older buildings sit vacant rather than redevelop them or offer them for rent at the price point which would attract tenants. It would appear that something doesn't stack up economically.

Not really. Malinauskus has been good for PR, but the positive trends were well in place right back to the Weatherill era with increased investment and better image. SA then did really well through COVID under Marshall, by keeping the virus out and allowing things to function much as normal, unlike the total disfunction we saw in places like NSW and Victoria.

I agree about the Weatherill era, he was a great Premier. Rebuilding Adelaide Oval in particular has been the most transformational project for this city in decades.

Though not sure what you consider things to function as normal under Marshall. South Australia had some of the most ridiculous and confusing restrictions in the country, hell we were one of the last jurisdictions to allow dancing if not the last. And let's not forget about the embarrassing fiasco over the pizza box strain.

South Australia was the model state for how to deal with COVID. We acted decisively to eliminate the virus each time it arrived, which allowed life to quickly return to mostly normal. Yes, of course there were some restrictions, but for the vast majority of the pandemic period, they were not on a level which completely impeded everyday life, like the months-long lockdowns in the eastern states where COVID became established did. That's why we had the influx of "COVID refugees", who came here to work from home and turned around the interstate migration figures. Its also why various economic performance indicators consistently outperformed those for the eastern states through COVID and beyond. Compare these gross state product charts from the ABS: https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/cumulat ... erritories . NSW and Victoria took a massive knocking during COVID, from which they are still struggling to recover. South Australia's downturn was short and minor, and economic growth then very quickly went on to accelerate to levels well above the pre-pandemic predictions. This was already the case in 2021 and 2022 when some COVID restrictions were still very much a reality.

I'm not attributing this all to Marshall, by the way. In South Australia, all sides of politics took a sensible approach and allowed COVID policy to be guided by the health experts, unlike interstate where it was politicised.

The pizza restaurant incident might have made some people look silly, but at the time, the response was the correct one. Only by acting quickly and decisively could the virus be eliminated. In the absence of a clear explanation about the chain of transmission, the best way of managing risk was a short and sharp lockdown to stop it in its tracks. People now laugh about it, because they later discovered there was no reason to be so concerned, but absent that information at the time the decision was made, the decision was correct. If the situation had turned out as the experts first though, and a new highly infection strain was circulating, then a failure to act immediately to shut down that transmission would have resulted in the virus quickly becoming established in the community, as happened in NSW and Victoria. Once that happens it is almost impossible to get rid of it. It was much better to have a couple of days of lockdown out of an abundance of caution than to risk having to implement the months-long lockdowns Sydney and Melbourne went through.

[Vasco]

Re height / not mentioned to be the tallest;

This will stand at 149m, while the proposed Freemasons tower will stand at 183m anyway.

Obviously that depends on if / when either are built and in what final form anyway.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SRW]

Re the comment "Ghost Tower".. If there is no demand for office space, then why would Walker Corp be planning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a development like this. Adelaide does have the highest office vacancy rate in the country, though so much of it are old and run down office buildings which no one wants to work in and is unable to meet today’s standards. So many should be converted into apartments, short term accommodation or just simply knocked down. The Da Costa building would be a great candidate for conversion into some snazzy apartments.

Basically, the answer to your rhetorical question is that the government will likely provide Walker with the pre-commitments required to get this tower off the ground. I'm sure it is all part of the mysterious dealings that have been going on behind the scenes. We already knew back last year that the government was in discussions with Walker regarding the potential relocation of staff from the State Administration Centre to fill a second Festival Plaza tower.

That's likely the quid pro quo here. The State Government gets the revenue for giving Walker development rights on public land. In return, Walker gets the sure tenant they need to get finance to build their tower. A fully private proposal on private land could never compete with such a sweet deal.

Yes, it is true that there is a lot of low quality stock which should be converted to other uses, but for whatever reason, that isn't happening. The building owners prefer to let these older buildings sit vacant rather than redevelop them or offer them for rent at the price point which would attract tenants. It would appear that something doesn't stack up economically.

There are three major office refurbishments underway (fmr CBA and Telstra towers by Quintessential Equity and fmr Internode building by Kambitsis group) but it's hard to make these sorts of projects stack up economically when competing with off-market sweetheart deals like this one (and the forgotten EIC building at Lot 14).

[SRW]

Re height / not mentioned to be the tallest;

This will stand at 149m, while the proposed Freemasons tower will stand at 183m anyway.

Obviously that depends on if / when either are built and in what final form anyway.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Inasmuch as the Keystone Tower is counting on AMOSAH to get off the ground, the proposed civic space in this building probably made it all the harder.

[gnrc_louis]

Re height / not mentioned to be the tallest;

This will stand at 149m, while the proposed Freemasons tower will stand at 183m anyway.

Obviously that depends on if / when either are built and in what final form anyway.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Inasmuch as the Keystone Tower is counting on AMOSAH to get off the ground, the proposed civic space in this building probably made it all the harder.

I was thinking this too. Not a great outcome.

[AG]

Re the comment "Ghost Tower".. If there is no demand for office space, then why would Walker Corp be planning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a development like this. Adelaide does have the highest office vacancy rate in the country, though so much of it are old and run down office buildings which no one wants to work in and is unable to meet today’s standards. So many should be converted into apartments, short term accommodation or just simply knocked down. The Da Costa building would be a great candidate for conversion into some snazzy apartments.

Basically, the answer to your rhetorical question is that the government will likely provide Walker with the pre-commitments required to get this tower off the ground. I'm sure it is all part of the mysterious dealings that have been going on behind the scenes. We already knew back last year that the government was in discussions with Walker regarding the potential relocation of staff from the State Administration Centre to fill a second Festival Plaza tower.

That's likely the quid pro quo here. The State Government gets the revenue for giving Walker development rights on public land. In return, Walker gets the sure tenant they need to get finance to build their tower. A fully private proposal on private land could never compete with such a sweet deal.

Yes, it is true that there is a lot of low quality stock which should be converted to other uses, but for whatever reason, that isn't happening. The building owners prefer to let these older buildings sit vacant rather than redevelop them or offer them for rent at the price point which would attract tenants. It would appear that something doesn't stack up economically.

There are three major office refurbishments underway (fmr CBA and Telstra towers by Quintessential Equity and fmr Internode building by Kambitsis group) but it's hard to make these sorts of projects stack up economically when competing with off-market sweetheart deals like this one (and the forgotten EIC building at Lot 14).

The office refurbishments are not really competing with these proposed new build directly as they are targeted at a different group of potential tenants. The refurbishments are largely targeted at smaller to mid-sized tenants who are looking for good quality office space (B+ or lower A grade), but don't necessarily need all the bells and whistles like 6-star NABERS ratings.

Walker Corp's new tower, on the other hand, would be more targeted at the larger corporations (e.g. banks, Big 4 accountants/management consultancies, insurance groups) looking for premium grade space with all the bells and whistles and requiring top ratings for everything.

[SRW]

Re height / not mentioned to be the tallest;

This will stand at 149m, while the proposed Freemasons tower will stand at 183m anyway.

Obviously that depends on if / when either are built and in what final form anyway.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Inasmuch as the Keystone Tower is counting on AMOSAH to get off the ground, the proposed civic space in this building probably made it all the harder.

I was thinking this too. Not a great outcome.

TBH, if this plaza tower is happening, I welcome the reserved civic space in this location but lament what could have been if it had been planned properly from the outset.

[Stryker]

Can someone please start a new thread for this proposed Festival Tower 2 project or change the title to reflect the new "tower"?

[crawf]

We already knew back last year that the government was in discussions with Walker regarding the potential relocation of staff from the State Administration Centre to fill a second Festival Plaza tower.

Honestly this wouldn't be a bad thing. That whole government precinct bordered between Victoria Square, Franklin St and Gawler Place is home to some of the oldest office stock in the city. Some of the building facilities haven't been touched since the 1980s. Not to mention, it's a dead part of the CBD with barely any street level activation and needs a major rejuvenation.

Yes, it is true that there is a lot of low quality stock which should be converted to other uses, but for whatever reason, that isn't happening. The building owners prefer to let these older buildings sit vacant rather than redevelop them or offer them for rent at the price point which would attract tenants. It would appear that something doesn't stack up economically.

In recent years with the influx of all these large office developments e.g. GPO Exchange, 81 Pirie, Festival Tower, 66 KWS and so on. This is now spurring a growing number of older office buildings being given a minor or major upgrade. The developments that SRW listed and older buildings including the former NAB building, 45 and 61 Pirie Street are all undergoing a facelift in particular to increase street level activation.

I guess though with older buildings like the Da Costa arcade. The cost would be very significant to convert the office floors into modern apartments. And with the city still largely underdeveloped, it's much more economical to build a brand new apartment or hotel building which is more attractive to investors.

Inasmuch as the Keystone Tower is counting on AMOSAH to get off the ground, the proposed civic space in this building probably made it all the harder.

I was thinking this too. Not a great outcome.

TBH, if this plaza tower is happening, I welcome the reserved civic space in this location but lament what could have been if it had been planned properly from the outset.

I completely agree with this and wish Mali was in office before this whole project started. In all, the entire riverbank development has been a complete mixmatch from the beginning - both past Liberal and Labor governments are to blame for this.

[rev]

It's also interesting to hear the media say 'one of the tallest' and not the 'tallest'.

Possibly this originates in the government press release. I can see why they would want to avoid bandying about the fact that this will be the tallest, given how controversial the tower already is.

Re the comment "Ghost Tower".. If there is no demand for office space, then why would Walker Corp be planning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a development like this. Adelaide does have the highest office vacancy rate in the country, though so much of it are old and run down office buildings which no one wants to work in and is unable to meet today’s standards. So many should be converted into apartments, short term accommodation or just simply knocked down. The Da Costa building would be a great candidate for conversion into some snazzy apartments.

Basically, the answer to your rhetorical question is that the government will likely provide Walker with the pre-commitments required to get this tower off the ground. I'm sure it is all part of the mysterious dealings that have been going on behind the scenes. We already knew back last year that the government was in discussions with Walker regarding the potential relocation of staff from the State Administration Centre to fill a second Festival Plaza tower.

That's likely the quid pro quo here. The State Government gets the revenue for giving Walker development rights on public land. In return, Walker gets the sure tenant they need to get finance to build their tower. A fully private proposal on private land could never compete with such a sweet deal.

Yes, it is true that there is a lot of low quality stock which should be converted to other uses, but for whatever reason, that isn't happening. The building owners prefer to let these older buildings sit vacant rather than redevelop them or offer them for rent at the price point which would attract tenants. It would appear that something doesn't stack up economically.

Not really. Malinauskus has been good for PR, but the positive trends were well in place right back to the Weatherill era with increased investment and better image. SA then did really well through COVID under Marshall, by keeping the virus out and allowing things to function much as normal, unlike the total disfunction we saw in places like NSW and Victoria.

I agree about the Weatherill era, he was a great Premier. Rebuilding Adelaide Oval in particular has been the most transformational project for this city in decades.

Though not sure what you consider things to function as normal under Marshall. South Australia had some of the most ridiculous and confusing restrictions in the country, hell we were one of the last jurisdictions to allow dancing if not the last. And let's not forget about the embarrassing fiasco over the pizza box strain.

South Australia was the model state for how to deal with COVID. We acted decisively to eliminate the virus each time it arrived, which allowed life to quickly return to mostly normal. Yes, of course there were some restrictions, but for the vast majority of the pandemic period, they were not on a level which completely impeded everyday life, like the months-long lockdowns in the eastern states where COVID became established did. That's why we had the influx of "COVID refugees", who came here to work from home and turned around the interstate migration figures. Its also why various economic performance indicators consistently outperformed those for the eastern states through COVID and beyond. Compare these gross state product charts from the ABS: https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/cumulat ... erritories . NSW and Victoria took a massive knocking during COVID, from which they are still struggling to recover. South Australia's downturn was short and minor, and economic growth then very quickly went on to accelerate to levels well above the pre-pandemic predictions. This was already the case in 2021 and 2022 when some COVID restrictions were still very much a reality.

I'm not attributing this all to Marshall, by the way. In South Australia, all sides of politics took a sensible approach and allowed COVID policy to be guided by the health experts, unlike interstate where it was politicised.

The pizza restaurant incident might have made some people look silly, but at the time, the response was the correct one. Only by acting quickly and decisively could the virus be eliminated. In the absence of a clear explanation about the chain of transmission, the best way of managing risk was a short and sharp lockdown to stop it in its tracks. People now laugh about it, because they later discovered there was no reason to be so concerned, but absent that information at the time the decision was made, the decision was correct. If the situation had turned out as the experts first though, and a new highly infection strain was circulating, then a failure to act immediately to shut down that transmission would have resulted in the virus quickly becoming established in the community, as happened in NSW and Victoria. Once that happens it is almost impossible to get rid of it. It was much better to have a couple of days of lockdown out of an abundance of caution than to risk having to implement the months-long lockdowns Sydney and Melbourne went through.

Guys, don't be another abc & rubberman, covid has nothing to do with this thread.

If older office buildings aren't being used, or able to keep existing tenants or attract new ones, then they should be converted into apartments. Or, instead of building new student accommodation towers, most of which look like utter shit and should never have been approved let alone built, why not convert older office buildings into accommodation for students?
Particularly if the trend is towards new, energy efficient and better overall designed office buildings as we're kind of seeing happen?

[VinyTapestry849]

Does anyone know if Deloitte have moved into the Festival Tower yet?

Does Deloitte have the rights to put their logo on the north-facing facade of the tower?

[dbl96]

We already knew back last year that the government was in discussions with Walker regarding the potential relocation of staff from the State Administration Centre to fill a second Festival Plaza tower.

Honestly this wouldn't be a bad thing. That whole government precinct bordered between Victoria Square, Franklin St and Gawler Place is home to some of the oldest office stock in the city. Some of the building facilities haven't been touched since the 1980s. Not to mention, it's a dead part of the CBD with barely any street level activation and needs a major rejuvenation.

Yes, it is true that there is a lot of low quality stock which should be converted to other uses, but for whatever reason, that isn't happening. The building owners prefer to let these older buildings sit vacant rather than redevelop them or offer them for rent at the price point which would attract tenants. It would appear that something doesn't stack up economically.

In recent years with the influx of all these large office developments e.g. GPO Exchange, 81 Pirie, Festival Tower, 66 KWS and so on. This is now spurring a growing number of older office buildings being given a minor or major upgrade. The developments that SRW listed and older buildings including the former NAB building, 45 and 61 Pirie Street are all undergoing a facelift in particular to increase street level activation.

I guess though with older buildings like the Da Costa arcade. The cost would be very significant to convert the office floors into modern apartments. And with the city still largely underdeveloped, it's much more economical to build a brand new apartment or hotel building which is more attractive to investors.

Ground level activation alone could make a decent dent in office vacancy rates. There are so many buildings, including some of the more modern, tenanted ones which waste prime street frontage with ground floor offices. I don't understand how it ever made financial sense to configure building this way, compared to including more active use of high-value ground floor space. These spaces should be fairly easy to convert to retail, hospitality etc, which would do wonderful things for the feel of the city. Even better, if they could be converted into mezzanine style tenancies, which would take out another level or two of vacant office space.

Agreed regarding the government precinct, but if what we suspect is going to happen happens, it is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better. As you say, its already a dead part of the CBD - imagine how bad it will be once all the current office workers are gone.