30 July 2020

A look around Canberra: New Acton

| Alexandra Craig
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The original suburb of Acton (are people going to start calling it Old Acton now?) was named by Lieutenant Arthur Jeffreys after a town in Denbighshire, Wales.

New Acton is a quite a nice part of Canberra. It has three main apartment complexes: Nishi, New Acton South and New Acton East.

This area has close proximity to Lake Burley Griffin and Civic, plenty of cafes – including Mocan and Green Grout, which has made it into the Good Food Top 20 best restaurants in Canberra for the last two years, and a Max Brenner.

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The most recognisable part of New Acton would probably have to be the Nishi building which houses HotelHotel as well as residential apartments and restaurants. Nishi is the building that looks like a giant honeycomb on one side, and on the other side has plants growing out of it.

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Some parts of New Acton remind me of a little mystical village. It can be very quiet at times and often looks perfectly groomed, with not a leaf out of place. This could be why some residents were upset about Westside, complaining about noise levels through a public letterboxing effort. As far as I am aware, the group’s complaints did not achieve anything.

A big feature of New Acton are the many different sculptures, statues and other artworks. The Time Thief by Robin Blau is one of my favourites.

Quick stats
Streets are named after: No theme. The streets were named before themes were put in place.
Federal Electorate: Fraser
Federal MP: Andrew Leigh
Territory Electorate: Molonglo
Population: 1966 (this is all of Acton, statistics for New Acton are unavailable)
Population breakdown: 51.5 per cent male, 48.5 per cent female
Average children per family: Due to the small population of this area, limited information has been provided in the Census.
Crime: 281 incidents in 2014 (all of Acton)

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Alexandra Craig said :

JC said :

Whilst I know you were being factious, there is NO suburb called New Acton, so no need to call the original part of Acton OLD Acton. New Acton is a marketing term for a new development not a suburb.

Just like West Macgregor is not a suburb, it is just a newish development in the suburb of Macgregor.

I thought people called it New Macgregor! 🙂

Though, when you look on google maps (I know google maps isn’t an official source), it’s interesting that New Acton is visible like it’s own suburb, but places like West Macgregor aren’t. They should fix that.

Ezy said :

I had a ‘staycation’ at Hotel Hotel a couple of weeks ago – and absolutely loved the space and the area. There was no need to leave the precinct for the weekend with so many options for nice food, drinks and a hotel lobby that has one of the best atmospheres I have come across.

Whenever I have out of state visitors to Canberra, I am always sure to send them here to stay – or if they are staying elsewhere, I make sure to take them through this precinct as it has a a very unique feel that nowhere else in Canberra can offer.

The only thing that really feels out of place there is Max Brenner.

I really want to have a staycation at HotelHotel too, however I would actually miss my cats too much. Crazy cat lady or not, I would feel bad staying 3 minutes away from my house while they are at home haha.

Agree re Max Brenner. It looked weird and out of place. There’s not really any other ‘brands’ in NewActon, except for the Soma Day Spa, but even then it’s not a super recognisable brand like Max Brenner is.

Max Brenner is really mediocre chocolate.

We have so many better options, why go to the MacDonalds of the sweets world?

creative_canberran5:55 pm 18 Jul 15

Alexandra Craig said :

JC said :

Whilst I know you were being factious, there is NO suburb called New Acton, so no need to call the original part of Acton OLD Acton. New Acton is a marketing term for a new development not a suburb.

Just like West Macgregor is not a suburb, it is just a newish development in the suburb of Macgregor.

I thought people called it New Macgregor! 🙂

Though, when you look on google maps (I know google maps isn’t an official source), it’s interesting that New Acton is visible like it’s own suburb, but places like West Macgregor aren’t. They should fix that.

Google Maps doesn’t. It lists it as “New Action, Acton, ACT” or as a PoI within Acton additionally.

And you shouldn’t be using Google Maps for that kind of research anyway, ActMapi is the authoritative source.

Alexandra Craig said :

JC said :

Whilst I know you were being factious, there is NO suburb called New Acton, so no need to call the original part of Acton OLD Acton. New Acton is a marketing term for a new development not a suburb.

Just like West Macgregor is not a suburb, it is just a newish development in the suburb of Macgregor.

People in (old) Macgregor may call it new Macgregor, but many that live in the new part and the developers of the estate call(ed) it West Macgregor as if it was a different suburb.

As for Acton, yeah if you google New Acton it comes up with a boundary line. But those boundary lines are not suburb boundaries. The tell tale sign is when you search New Acton in google, the search box will show the suburb name, which shows as Acton. And if you search Acton it includes “New” Acton.

The only true source of suburb boundaries and names is the ACT government and the best tool for that is their ACTMAPi website.

http://www.actmapi.act.gov.au/SilverlightViewer_1_10/Viewer.html?ViewerConfig=http://www.actmapi.act.gov.au/Geocortex/Essentials/GE3151/REST/sites/Basic/viewers/Basic/virtualdirectory/Config/Viewer.xml&runWorkflow=SearchBlocks_combobox

La_Tour_Maubourg8:04 am 18 Jul 15

This precinct is actually located within “City,” not Acton.

New Acton, Australian Capital Territory is a new suburb of Canberra. It is one of the most successful developments with New Acton being developed in a relatively short space of time. New Acton has won numerous awards for its design and architecture, adding to its reputation as a new successful urban precinct. It is a broadway suburb containing theaters and hotels. The design and architecture of New Acton is reminiscent of Croydon in the United Kingdom. The New Acton peninsula also contains the National Museum of Australia and the pop-up container village known as Westside Acton Park.

Ezy said :

I had a ‘staycation’ at Hotel Hotel a couple of weeks ago -.

Alexandra Craig said :

I really want to have a staycation at HotelHotel too, however I would actually miss my cats too much

OK, I admit it, I had to google ‘staycation’. When I did the definitions I came across all said that a ‘staycation’ involved staying at home.

Alexandra Craig2:42 pm 17 Jul 15

JC said :

Whilst I know you were being factious, there is NO suburb called New Acton, so no need to call the original part of Acton OLD Acton. New Acton is a marketing term for a new development not a suburb.

Just like West Macgregor is not a suburb, it is just a newish development in the suburb of Macgregor.

I thought people called it New Macgregor! 🙂

Though, when you look on google maps (I know google maps isn’t an official source), it’s interesting that New Acton is visible like it’s own suburb, but places like West Macgregor aren’t. They should fix that.

Ezy said :

I had a ‘staycation’ at Hotel Hotel a couple of weeks ago – and absolutely loved the space and the area. There was no need to leave the precinct for the weekend with so many options for nice food, drinks and a hotel lobby that has one of the best atmospheres I have come across.

Whenever I have out of state visitors to Canberra, I am always sure to send them here to stay – or if they are staying elsewhere, I make sure to take them through this precinct as it has a a very unique feel that nowhere else in Canberra can offer.

The only thing that really feels out of place there is Max Brenner.

I really want to have a staycation at HotelHotel too, however I would actually miss my cats too much. Crazy cat lady or not, I would feel bad staying 3 minutes away from my house while they are at home haha.

Agree re Max Brenner. It looked weird and out of place. There’s not really any other ‘brands’ in NewActon, except for the Soma Day Spa, but even then it’s not a super recognisable brand like Max Brenner is.

I had a ‘staycation’ at Hotel Hotel a couple of weeks ago – and absolutely loved the space and the area. There was no need to leave the precinct for the weekend with so many options for nice food, drinks and a hotel lobby that has one of the best atmospheres I have come across.

Whenever I have out of state visitors to Canberra, I am always sure to send them here to stay – or if they are staying elsewhere, I make sure to take them through this precinct as it has a a very unique feel that nowhere else in Canberra can offer.

The only thing that really feels out of place there is Max Brenner.

JC beat me to it, NewActon (no space) is the Molonglo group’s name for the area. Most of Acton is made up of ANU.

The Molonlgo Group have done a fantastic job with the area though.

Old Adaminaby. New Adaminaby 🙂

Whilst I know you were being factious, there is NO suburb called New Acton, so no need to call the original part of Acton OLD Acton. New Acton is a marketing term for a new development not a suburb.

Just like West Macgregor is not a suburb, it is just a newish development in the suburb of Macgregor.

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