Sensational-Adelaide.com

wilkiebarkid wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 05, 2018 9:26 pm

It could be something to do with a major redevelopment of the Wakefield Hospital site which has been sold. The hospital buildings will become vacant once the new Calvary is complete. This site may be incorporated into a complete redevelopment of this area.

dbl96 wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 06, 2018 9:58 am

wilkiebarkid wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 05, 2018 9:26 pm

It could be something to do with a major redevelopment of the Wakefield Hospital site which has been sold. The hospital buildings will become vacant once the new Calvary is complete. This site may be incorporated into a complete redevelopment of this area.

Do you know anything more about the details of that sale? Who was the buyer? How much money was paid?

It seems strange that the site would already have been sold despite the fact that the hospital is still operating there.

Historic bluestone Hutt St cottages destroyed for Opus apartment — now project is shelved


A planned 13-storey apartment tower in the city’s east has been shelved, two years after two historic cottages were “needlessly” demolished to make way for the project.

The Advertiser understands that investors in the $18 million 41-apartment Opus project, on the corner of Hutt and Ifould streets, have been reimbursed their deposits.

Adelaide City Councillor Sandy Wilkinson said the existing 1880s bluestone cottages were in “perfect condition” and should never have been demolished.

He said the properties had been recommended for heritage protection as part of a city council heritage review in 2009 but had been left at the mercy of the bulldozer after the former State Government rejected their local heritage listing.

He said many historic properties were victims of laws that allow developers to demolish existing buildings without having the finance to complete the project.

“Really what should be done is that demolition can’t start until they have got bank finance to start a development,” he said.

“They could have had those buildings rented out (until construction) offered them as a shop and get them occupied, which would have been a better outcome.

“Apart from losing two beautiful buildings, what we end up getting are vacant sites, or they get turned into temporary car parks — it’s a bad look for the city.

“Adelaide’s bluestone is hanging in the balance and needlessly being destroyed.”

He said the Opus tower could have been built behind the existing villas.

The paper is not suggesting that proponents of the Opus project did not have required funding to start the development.

Developer Franco Boscaini declined to discuss the matter in detail but said the project may still go ahead. “It’s being assessed,” he said.

The state’s planning commission approved the Opus project in August 2016; the villas were demolished three months later. The Advertiser reported in October 2016 that the project was scheduled to be completed by the end of 2017.

It is understood that investors were returned their deposits last month.

Mr Wilkinson said banks were tightening lending criteria and requiring between 80 and 100 per cent of apartments to be pre-sold before lending money because “the apartment market is saturated”.

Opus was one of a number of apartment projects identified in an Adelaide City Council report tabled in August that would “benefit from increased interest in sales”.

“It is worth noting that two large projects, comprising 377 apartments, have recently been taken off the market and are unlikely to go ahead in the near future (Park Square on South Tce containing 256 apartments and Echelon on King William St containing 121 apartments),” the report said.