Proposed Commercial Development on Victoria Quay

01 Jul, 2006

There has been considerable confusion and mis-information regarding the Chamber's position on this development. The Chamber has been a strong supporter of the development of the commercial precinct for a number of years, because we believe Fremantle urgently needs new commercial space and, in particular, some large plate space.

Currently, there is nowhere that any medium to large size enterprise could move to if they wished to operate in Fremantle. For example, a number of years ago, Tourism Western Australia seriously explored the opportunity of moving from Perth CBD to Fremantle. They needed 2,500 sq. m. of modern space. The Chamber and the City of Fremantle carried out an extensive search without success and the opportunity was lost.

Last month, it was announced that 250 jobs would be moving from Marine House in Essex Street, owing to the redevelopment of Marine House as an hotel. There is no point the Chamber or the City lobbying the Department of Planning and Infrastructure to keep the jobs in Fremantle because there is nowhere for them to go.

We are concerned that Fremantle will continue to move to become predominantly a centre of education and tourism, and to a lesser extent medicine. These are, of course, all sectors that are to be encouraged but for the City to remain a vibrant regional centre, it needs other business sectors to flourish as well. To do so, they need modern commercial space. The ING project has raised the opportunity of a possible 25,000 sq. m. of commercial space being delivered to Fremantle, hence our support.

As to the form of the buildings, the Chamber has not expressed a view, although it is clear in all the consultations that the Chamber has attended, that the view corridors down Market and Pakenham Streets are greatly treasured by the community. Equally, there are many members of the community who are concerned that the current design is simply too tall and bulky.

The Chamber applauds the initiative taken by Carmen Lawrence, Jim McGinty and Peter Tagliaferri to develop an alternative plan that lowers the buildings and also preserves the view corridors. We are hopeful that ING will be able to incorporate elements of this plan and at the same time keep as much commercial space as possible.

Commentators who have suggested that the Chamber has blindly supported this project, particularly the 8-storey option that was put up by ING, are incorrect. The Chamber looks forward to ING presenting their final design, which hopefully will take into account the input it has received from the recent informal public consultation and subsequently joining the debate that will be conducted by the City as part of the formal consultation process.