In less than a week developers of the CH Smith site expect to know if the City of Launceston will support their bold plan to revitalise the buildings left vacant for the past two decades.
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Launceston businessman Errol Stewart and ARTAS Architects principal Scott Curran announced they had bought the historic site from Geelong property group Brile in November, and were quick to share their plans with the community.
A cafe, offices to service up to 350 workers and a council-owned 300 space car park is set to revive the notorious site, but many have attempted the project before.
Mr Curran said it was appealing, not daunting, to take on a challenging site like CH Smith where others had tried and failed.
“The last three schemes have all been proposed by mainland developers and I think that what we have in our favour is that we’ve had nearly a 15 or 16-year association with Errol Stewart, and during that period of time we’ve done the Seaport with him and we are now doing the Silos,” he said.
“The other thing is that this is not [ARTAS’] first building. We’ve done the art gallery at Inveresk, and we’ve done The Charles and we did our own building opposite the car park in Patterson Street and now we are doing The Examiner building.
“We’ve got a real understanding of what you can and can’t do with these buildings and I think when we have five or six under our belt already, we’re realistic about what we can and can’t do with the building.”
Often when walking past the Charles Street facade it might appear a fresh lick of paint and new windows would be all it would take to get the buildings back in good condition but the inside of the site tells a different story.
Mr Curran said if the buildings were left as they are for the next 12 months he did not think there would be any chance of saving their precious heritage.
As he showed The Examiner a glimpse at the internals of the historic structures, the work involved in the revitalisation was clear. A giant void on the second level is littered with rubbish, graffiti is scattered across the walls and if you gaze up to the third level the exposure to the weather has led to beams of rotting wood. But among the unpalatable is potential.
Mr Curran said some of the existing steel structure will be retained and when your back is turned away from the building your eyes are drawn to the sweeping views across Trevallyn and West Launceston into the Cataract Gorge.
One of the issues for us was to see how we could incorporate as much of the existing site as we could because we knew that we had a responsibility to maintain all of the existing facades.
- Scott Curran, ARTAS Architects principal
ARTAS has been working closing with the Tasmanian Heritage Council on a number of the components of the design.
“One of the issues for us was to see how we could incorporate as much of the existing site as we could, because we knew that we had a responsibility to maintain all of the existing facades and as much of the existing buildings as we could,” Mr Curran said.
He said it had been a struggle to decide how to use the existing buildings in a way that was sustainable and a key component of the design was to re-use as much as they could.
“One of the other things that we noticed about the other schemes as well was that all of the site got developed, so what we have tired to do is take a step back and have a look at what parts of the site we can develop and what parts of the site we can leave so there is more openness.
“We’re fairly conscious of the fact that everyone has looked into the back end of this building for the last 20 years, so [the challenge is] how do we balance that with creating a terrific space that is also sustainable.”
Balance between the heritage and sustainability was always at the forefront of his mind when the new elements of the building were being designed.
The new section has been inspired by different elements such as the shape of the existing building’s windows and there are plans to incorporate some of the brickwork being dismantled into the new area.
“What we tried to do with the form of the building was pick up on the industrial nature of what the site was originally and contextually the building that we have designed is similar in from to the warehouse that was here originally.”
He said it was also important to be mindful of energy consumption for future tenants, with automated sun shades, double glazed windows and water recycling to be incorporated into the plan to minimise the ongoing running costs.
Mr Curran said he believed there was a need for modern office space across the city, with potential tenants reevaluating what an office should encompass.
“If you can get natural light into an office, if you can get open space, if you can get collaboration then it makes your office space a lot more appealing and that’s what we felt about this site.
“It really gave us an opportunity to do that and it’s one of the benefits of the site, it’s got a big open space, great orientation and fantastic views.”
Most other development applications for the one hectare site, located just two blocks from the Brisbane Street Mall, contained spaces for retail outlets, something that was not a focus for the developers.
“We didn’t want to add to the fragmentation of the retail zone in Launceston, so when we were thinking about the potential uses of what the building might be there certainly wasn’t an emphasis on retail.”
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