19 December 2007

As Centro goes down, Belco goes up.

| Joe Canberran
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It seems the crash of Centro stock, a 50% owner of the Tuggy Hyperdome, hasn’t baulked Westfield nor the ACT Government as they announced (with the obligitory spin) a massive refurb of the Belconnen mall and the bus interchange which is to include an additional 80 odd shops, a 10 story office block, lakeview dinning, etc, etc.

The Crimes has their front page story online here with and artist impression of the refurb here.

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I’ll be pissed if they build it like the Canberra Centre. You need a god damned skateboard to get from one end to the other. The shops are, for the most part, full of over-priced yuppie fodder or completely useless cheap junk.

Doesn’t matter what label is on your clothes these days – they’re all made in China. Still, if you want to pay $100 for a “vintage” T-shirt, go right ahead, just keep your patsy-ass (in it’s shoddily made $300 “distressed” duds) out of my way when I’m skating to JB from the car park!

I was more interested in the tail end of a story I heard about plans to do something with the courtyards spaces behind the Sydney and Melbourne buildings. It would be great to see something happen there. Anyone heard anything about that?

Regardless of what the hyperdome looks like, it still turns a hell of a lot of money. all 4 major shopping centres in canberra have been the subject of envy of property developers for years, as Canberra has very well defined feeder areas for its town centres so they can much more easily predict sales and growth. It wont fall into teh ground, in fact if centro has to sell it it will probably result in massive investment in the centre.

The belconnen overhaul is well overdue. I only hope westfield doesn’t have canberra centre syndrome and build a low quality, scratchily built expansion full of flaws, which fails to achieve the aims of bulking up and revitalsing the area. They better make sure it includes more parking!

and from what i’ve seen theres just as many ‘pregnant teens’, ‘bogans’, and the like in belconnen, woden, and especially civic

What do you mean fullstop ?

Or is it your objective to be provoking ?

Deadmandrinking5:03 pm 20 Dec 07

What do you mean ‘fall into’?

Does this mean Tuggeranong is going to fall into some kind of black hole because its mall just imploded ?

Good to see some action happening in that part of the woods, like others have said its a bloody eye sore and should have gone years ago.

Finally, room for a lush franchise. http://www.lush.com.au

Felix the Cat6:40 pm 19 Dec 07

Just what Canberra needs is more shops…./sarcasm off

It’s good to see the Bus Interchange remodelled (it’s now going to be on Benjamin Way at street level?), it is long overdue.

Its the woolworths / coles carpark

It could be the Churches Centre, but I was thinking, maybe the Woolworths carpark. It’s owned by the ACT Government. It’s a huge area, enough for the 80 extra stores, and a Target. Maybe they’ll have either underground, or roof parking to replace it.

hingo_VRCalaisV65:01 pm 19 Dec 07

Sounds good. The interchange is an eyesore

random, im betting its the Churches Centre.

The 2 sites that are currently being built on random as far as I know are, 1. The new offices (where Cash Converters used to be) and 2. Apartments that are being built on that land just up from Subway. Surprised nothing has happened there yet, but as far as I know they are still approved to go ahead.

Does anyone know exactly which “adjoining site” they’ve acquired?

agreed with RandomGit there.. and the end of the monstrosity of the belconnen interchange that should have been demolished more than 10 years ago!

I expect the Government will announce almost the exact same type of deal for Westfield Woden in the next year as well.

I reckon the other owners would be cheering, as Centro’s woes may give them some leverage to buy out more of the asset on the cheap.

Anything that makes it more of a City Centre and less of an Industrioretail Architectural monstrosity zone is a big thumbs up in my book.

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