Re: APP: Glenelg Cinema site, Jetty Rd | 2 level retail
Posted: Mon Feb 13, 2012 10:39 am
FAIL GLENELG COUNCIL FAIL
shame shame shame
shame shame shame
Taplin's Bay cinema bid
Local News28 Mar 12 @ 07:13am by Tim Williams
SHOW TIME: An artist's impression of what the proposed cinema would look like.
GLENELG might have a cinema once more if a $20 million proposal from developer Andrew Taplin goes ahead.
Mr Taplin wants to build a seven-screen cinema complex over the Holdfast Bay Council-owned Cowper St carpark, between Partridge and Cowper streets.
The cinema would be elevated to preserve the parking spaces beneath.
The project also would include a one or two-deck carpark over the council-owned carpark on the eastern side of Partridge St, which would be jointly funded by Mr Taplin and the council.
Mr Taplin would fund the re-landscaping of Cowper St and refurbish his Partridge St shops, while two Partridge St shopfronts owned by the council would be demolished.
Mr Taplin wants approval by the end of this year in order to have the new cinemas open in November 2013 for the summer season.
Glenelg has been without a movie theatre since 2009, when Wallis Cinemas closed the much-loved Glenelg Cinema.
The art deco cinema was demolished last August to make way for a retail development, after Mr Taplin unsuccessfully sought a joint venture with Wallis to save and extend it into a multi-screen complex.
“There should be a cinema at Glenelg and we seriously believe that,” Mr Taplin said.
“Assuming council endorses it, this will revitalise not just Jetty Rd but the whole area.
“I think we have come up with a very smart plan on what the community want to see and what the (Jetty Rd) retailers deserve.”
Mr Taplin said the amount the council would be asked to invest would depend on how much of the land east of Partridge St was built up with decked parking.
Both carparks would be owned and controlled by the council but the Taplin Group would seek a long-term guarantee that cinema patrons would park for free, he said.
Jetty Rd Mainstreet Management Committee chairman Bruce Grindlay said the proposal would receive ``very, very strong support from the traders’‘.
``To get a cinema back will make a huge difference to the place,’’ Mr Grindlay said.
The proposal was presented to Holdfast Bay councillors in a workshop behind closed doors last week, but Mayor Ken Rollond said no formal vote was taken to go into confidence, so he felt free to discuss it.
He said he, too, was a supporter of the return of a cinema to Glenelg.
But he said he had some concerns, given that the proposed cinema and new carpark would be built over council land.
He said the council should seek an independent legal and financial assessment to determine whether it was a good deal for ratepayers and whether other developers should be
allowed to pitch different ideas for the two sites.
Mr Taplin said the council should draw on its carparking fund, which has been collecting developer and trader contributions since the 1980s and totalled more than $2 million, to fund its part of the project.
If the council endorsed the project, it would then need state government approval through the Development Assessment Commission, he said.
Council chief executive Justin Lynch declined to talk about the proposal, maintaining the workshop was confidential.
He was hopeful of organising another confidential workshop yesterday (Tuesday, March 27, after the Guardian Messenger deadline) for councillors to discuss the project, after which they might choose to debate it at the full council meeting that night.
