• An artist’s impression of an expanded Garden City.
GARDEN CITY will be a venue for special public events such as Christmas pageants, night markets, music concerts and festivals following a $750 million expansion making it WA’s largest shopping centre.
Scott Nugent from AMP Capital, which owns the centre, told the Herald a proposed high street through an area near the existing council library will be closed to traffic for special events.
“It would be a private road so we’ll be able to close it off at certain times of the year,” Mr Nugent says. “Our main street, which hasn’t got an official name yet, will have council buildings, such as a new library, on one side and the other will be restaurant dining and cinema entertainment. It’ll be the focal area for the city centre.”
He says the street dining precinct will encourage evening foot traffic and likely be home to about five or six “quality” restaurants.
“One of the main things we got from feedback from our customers was that the community wanted to bring the garden back to Garden City,” Mr Nugent says.
“So we’ll have water features, gardens…it’ll be an oasis, and there won’t be a lot of slick hard surfaces.”
Grass will even grow on some roofs, designs show.
The company has lodged its development plans to the Metro Central joint development assessment panel for approval, which Mr Nugent hopes to get in the last quarter of this year.
If all goes well for AMP Capital, construction will start by the end of 2016 and finish by 2020.
The redevelopment will expand the centre from 72,000sqm to about 120,000sqm and include two new department stores, two supermarkets and international fashion retailers.
It’ll employ 2500 workers during construction and the same amount of permanent retail/hospitality jobs will be created as 210 new shops open upon completion.
To develop the high street, Melville council plans to swap land with AMP Capital.
It involves handing over a parcel of council land the library currently rests on in exchange for a triangle near Hoyts Cinema.
Councillor Cameron Schuster told the Herald AMP Capital will chip in a publicly undisclosed amount to build a new library as part of the council’s $38 million plans for a new civic centre at Garden City.
For more information, visit http://www.gardencity.com.au.
by EMMIE DOWLING
