Cheap trick on Tuggeranong

Thanks for these great summer top 10 features. How I missed this article about the long slow decline of the Hyperdome I’ll never know. I was there over Xmas and the government hasn’t touched the surrounding zones for twenty five years.

as a regular bus user, the bus interchange is so poorly designed. It is such a hassle!

I couldn’t have said it better. I along with my best friend have lived in Tuggeranong for over 20yrs and absolutely love the location. After Myers exiting Tuggeranong it has been downhill slide for hyperdome.
There are so many things they can do to revitalise the Tuggeranong town center but if only. They are too busy spending all our money on Gunghalin and Kingston. Heck we don’t even get the nbn till 2020.

Tuggeranong Town Centre has two time zones according to the stopped two clocks on top of the Four Seasons building across the street from the main entrance to the Hyperdome.
There is no better way to depict total inertia than a stopped clock but there are two!
I was going to send a photo of same but the technology is too much of a challenge.

Think the you will find the reason belco and Woden have less small traders compared to Tuggeranong and Gungahlin is because they are owned by a major shopping centre company who like to do business with franchise style stores.

Gungahlin is interesting in how spread out it is with a small area near the lake then the shopping strip. But it also has the strip parallel to the main one (cannot recall the name but essentially behind Aldi) plus now the strip row shops along Flemmington road.

But the town centre itself don’t think the multiple small malls works that well. Would have maybe been better off with just one but more open to the street which is something the older malls lack(ed).

rosscoact said :

JC said :

Felix the Cat said :

I don’t think Tuggeranong is the only town centre to fail to make proper use of water frontage.

Belconnen basically only has Lighthouse pub using Lake Ginninderra and UC LG College (and the skateboard bowl). There are other restaurants/fast food outlets in the vicinity but they aren’t using the lake and it’s views in the way they should.

In Gungahlin you have Yerrabi Pond that is IMO very underutilised with only a couple of restaurants in the vicinity, the rest of the businesses are mostly admin/office type ones such as accountants that would be better off in the actual town centre and leave the lake frontage for cafes, restaurants and the like.

Unfortunately time moves on. When Belconnen and Tuggeranong were developed the world was a very insular one of drive to a mall do what you want and leave. Nowadays we are a tad more relaxed and want to wine dine and drink coffee in an environment that is a bit more electorate than a shopping centre.

Sadly bit hard to change what was done in the past unless you want to bulldoze places like the hyperdome and Belconnen mall and start again on the waters edge.

Gungahlin is interesting in that the government (Carnell if I recall) wanted to break the big mall model and at least have an outdoor focus. But that hasn’t really worked either. Might have been better if it was closer to water and opened up on the water rather than a road. Then again the view would have been of the houses on the other side. Always a problem with artificial lakes and storm water ponds which is what Tuggeranong and Gungahlin are. Lake Gininderra at least is a man made lake that isn’t for storm water pond.

Gungahlin hasn’t quite hit the mark but there are many major social issues with Mall culture I thank goodness I live in a town without mall cops.

Without the artificiality of the Mall environment there is a more organic growth from small business instead of major chains and this is providing opportunities that don’t exist in Woden, Belco and Tuggers. Tuggeranong is hindered rather than helped by the Mall because it is not in their interests to have any activity outside their curtilage. When Tuggeranong gets a new lease of life will be the community that causes it, not government (although getting out of the road will help) and certainly not big business.

However, the tram and the associated changes in habits will be a major contributor to the continuing improvements in Gungahlin, as will upgrades to footpaths and parking.

I don’t know about the development of smaller business outside the mall’s in gunghalin – Tuggeranong has done quite well and being slightly older has cheaper rents both directly outside the mall and in the surrounding suburbs. Tuggeranong had Rosemount that started in the lifestyle centre, then moved to the larger space in the light industrial area south of the mall, Arnold’s has been a steady presence on the fringes of the mall, lakeview restaurant operating since I was a small child. 3D6 moved – from a franchise down in Lanyon to shops adjacent. Crafty frog, trophy shop, that beer brewing place all in Kambah.
Equivalently there seems to be no space in Gungahlin, Jolt – went to Mitchell and the surrounding suburbs of Gungahlin aside from a strip on Yerribi ponds with the yoga studio, Persian restaurant, café and hair dressers.

JC said :

Felix the Cat said :

I don’t think Tuggeranong is the only town centre to fail to make proper use of water frontage.

Belconnen basically only has Lighthouse pub using Lake Ginninderra and UC LG College (and the skateboard bowl). There are other restaurants/fast food outlets in the vicinity but they aren’t using the lake and it’s views in the way they should.

In Gungahlin you have Yerrabi Pond that is IMO very underutilised with only a couple of restaurants in the vicinity, the rest of the businesses are mostly admin/office type ones such as accountants that would be better off in the actual town centre and leave the lake frontage for cafes, restaurants and the like.

Unfortunately time moves on. When Belconnen and Tuggeranong were developed the world was a very insular one of drive to a mall do what you want and leave. Nowadays we are a tad more relaxed and want to wine dine and drink coffee in an environment that is a bit more electorate than a shopping centre.

Sadly bit hard to change what was done in the past unless you want to bulldoze places like the hyperdome and Belconnen mall and start again on the waters edge.

Gungahlin is interesting in that the government (Carnell if I recall) wanted to break the big mall model and at least have an outdoor focus. But that hasn’t really worked either. Might have been better if it was closer to water and opened up on the water rather than a road. Then again the view would have been of the houses on the other side. Always a problem with artificial lakes and storm water ponds which is what Tuggeranong and Gungahlin are. Lake Gininderra at least is a man made lake that isn’t for storm water pond.

Gungahlin hasn’t quite hit the mark but there are many major social issues with Mall culture I thank goodness I live in a town without mall cops.

Without the artificiality of the Mall environment there is a more organic growth from small business instead of major chains and this is providing opportunities that don’t exist in Woden, Belco and Tuggers. Tuggeranong is hindered rather than helped by the Mall because it is not in their interests to have any activity outside their curtilage. When Tuggeranong gets a new lease of life will be the community that causes it, not government (although getting out of the road will help) and certainly not big business.

However, the tram and the associated changes in habits will be a major contributor to the continuing improvements in Gungahlin, as will upgrades to footpaths and parking.

Spiral said :

I remember when the tall tower in Homeworld had glowing symbols at the top. Then they only half worked, then stopped working and have never been repaired. It seemed to symbolise the general health of the area.

Ahhh the Homeworld Tower. Visitors from Paris must feel inadequate when you compare the ‘quite frankly rather boring’ Eiffel tower against Homeworld’s modern wonder of the world that rises so gracefully above Tuggeranong.

You will note the towers half painted / half rusted look and the ‘so structurally unsound it could topple at any time’ were key inclusions to the original design of the tower. The other possible reason for Homeworld tower might have been that the original Crane used in the build was accidently ‘Meccanoed’ to the site and never removed.

Felix the Cat said :

I don’t think Tuggeranong is the only town centre to fail to make proper use of water frontage.

Belconnen basically only has Lighthouse pub using Lake Ginninderra and UC LG College (and the skateboard bowl). There are other restaurants/fast food outlets in the vicinity but they aren’t using the lake and it’s views in the way they should.

In Gungahlin you have Yerrabi Pond that is IMO very underutilised with only a couple of restaurants in the vicinity, the rest of the businesses are mostly admin/office type ones such as accountants that would be better off in the actual town centre and leave the lake frontage for cafes, restaurants and the like.

Unfortunately time moves on. When Belconnen and Tuggeranong were developed the world was a very insular one of drive to a mall do what you want and leave. Nowadays we are a tad more relaxed and want to wine dine and drink coffee in an environment that is a bit more electorate than a shopping centre.

Sadly bit hard to change what was done in the past unless you want to bulldoze places like the hyperdome and Belconnen mall and start again on the waters edge.

Gungahlin is interesting in that the government (Carnell if I recall) wanted to break the big mall model and at least have an outdoor focus. But that hasn’t really worked either. Might have been better if it was closer to water and opened up on the water rather than a road. Then again the view would have been of the houses on the other side. Always a problem with artificial lakes and storm water ponds which is what Tuggeranong and Gungahlin are. Lake Gininderra at least is a man made lake that isn’t for storm water pond.

BenjaminRose1991 said :

The biggest issues in the town centre is the poorly designed monolith that is the Hyperdome and the poorly placed bus interchange.

Block 3 of Section 5 of Greenway should be redeveloped into a new interchange with that block being a better central location for pedestrian movement. As for the Hyperdome – flatten and redevelop it section by section into something less monolithic with tons of street frontages (More like the Gungahlin shopping centre but with better road traffic movement)

I hate the Gungahlin layout and actually avoid going there. I go to civic for Big W rather than Gungahlin.
It’s not only the traffic layout but the layout of the shops too.
I haven’t been to the revamped area.

With Tuggeranong Part of the problem it was on the edge of the centre and the high rents that basically forced a lot of businesses out.
I do enjoy going to Tuggeranong now particularly that it has a Big W, JB, and that Cheap bookstore but as I live on the other side of town I rarely go there.