BEN REVI travels to the past and finds some fresh ideas for Adelaide’s future

Things don’t always turn over so quickly in Adelaide. All over the city, ‘for lease’ signs remain inside dirty windows; through many a locked glass door, piles of unopened mail and paint cans are all that can be seen. This opens up quite a fascinating experience: it is possible to go walking through the past. We can still experience so many of our beloved, long-gone haunts, those old bars and cafés and record stores that, from the outside, seem as though they’ve never left us.

Outside one vacant lot, the logo for Cartoons Nightclub – a fond or maybe not-so-fond memory for those old enough – still remains. Those just a little younger must still remember Hungry George – the bizarre fast-food monolith that became the choice late-night diet for many who managed to deftly increase their cholesterol intake without ever touching the big corporations. The giant George’s building now stands deserted and dilapidated, apparently because the owner went into liquidation. Elsewhere in the city, the building which once housed the Planet Nightclub (Bump ‘n’ Grind, anyone?) remains abandoned, and the small but cozy Gallery Delacatessen is boarded up with posters. And in the centre of it all, the stained glass window which advertised The Coffee Pot, a fondly-remembered café just off Rundle Mall, now serves only as nostalgia.

But there are new signs of life on this tour. The venue which once was Fad, a multi-storey bar and gallery, is again under construction. Another vacant lot, once home of the historic Flash Café, shows signs of a new tenancy. Yet perhaps we should not get too excited. The logo for the excellent vintage store Mod Emporium still stands – but only as an anachronism pitched above a karaoke bar; another brilliant clothing retailer, Fat Afro, has disappeared to be converted into a series of short-lived computer outlets.

So why are so many of our once-favoured locations still empty? Some claim that Adelaide’s small population simply can’t sustain an independent retail culture. However, this doesn’t seem fair – especially since Adelaide boasts almost twice the population of booming European cultural centres such as Oslo and Copenhagen. Another potential answer is suburbanisation: that the inner city is constantly losing business to the free parking and undercover convenience of the local shopping centre. Yet if more small business were encouraged, surely this would give the city a unique identity rising above suburban chain-store utilitarianism. Also interesting is the link between tourism and small-business retail; by this logic, Melbourne is able to sustain its independent business by the investment made by retail tourists, who only visit Adelaide in vast numbers during the festival season.

There’s one more problem to solve. Many venues are owned by just a few landlords. These properties can be used as leverage for future borrowings, and cost less as empty spaces than they would as thriving retail enterprises. It is difficult to convince landlords to make the investment required to maintain old properties; and, at present, no laws or by-laws exist to enforce such standards. (The Adelaide City Council is currently considering enacting such a by-law.) This is why so many potential spaces look so unfortunate.

West End Trader’s Association President Andrew Wallace is as distraught as anyone about the state of many abandoned lots. “For a number of buildings in our precinct,” he speculates, “it appears that some of the building owners simply do not care at all... The poor presentation of these buildings not only affects the perceived value of the building or vacant tenancy space but contributes to an overall impression that the precinct itself is not of value”.

However, Wallace is in no way despairing. In his view, Adelaide has immense untapped potential, and could be just as vibrant as its eastern cousins. “It is... very much front of mind of the ACC [Adelaide City Council] at present,” he claims. “The west end precinct is blessed with some fantastic laneways with some really interesting building stock. We are at the point where, due to the tramline extension and the development of the railyards site, the precinct is about to undergo significant change – and I feel the creative reimagining of these laneways will be an important part of revitalising the precinct as a whole.”

Wallace believes the trick is to follow the example of “the enlightened collaboration between governments and building owners and the community,” including the street art community, which revitalised the laneways of Melbourne during the early 1990s. Councillor Anne Moran also claims that the “ACC could and should always try to do more to attract businesses and commercial development with the emphasis being on ‘sustainable’ development. We have a section called “Enterprise Adelaide” which helps business with advice. We also try to deal with planning procedures in a non-obstructive way - not too much ‘red tape’ without risking ruining Adelaide’s ‘character’. That said though, we could always do more.”
At present, exactly such a ‘doing more’ precedent is being established in the former steel city of Newcastle. The Renew Newcastle project, spearheaded by This Is Not Art festival founder Marcus Westbury, links artists and community organisations to landlords, offering rolling 30-day leases to short term projects in retail spaces which are otherwise unused. Right now, there are record and zine stores, art galleries and even a tea house open under the project.

Adelaide too is ripe with unused retail space and a vibrant arts culture, just waiting to join forces. The lesson is that it’s up to us to work with the Council to add life to our city. The ACC finds Renew Newcastle ‘very interesting’. Wallace and Moran are both extremely supportive of applying the concept in Adelaide. And in Moran’s case, we can hold her to it. “It’s a great idea and I will look into what Newcastle is doing and revisit the idea here,” she enthuses. “I promise.”

Photos by AARON SCHUPPAN