THE march of new supermarkets into the inner city suburbs keeps coming with a Farmer Jacks’ planned for Mount Hawthorn.

The plan is for “adaptive reuse” of part of the empty building at 357 Oxford Street. The unusual layout will see most of the shop underground to fit in with the area’s mostly low-lying buildings, and a small liquor store will float in a mezzanine above the supermarket. 

The project scoops up the Oxford motors site to make it all fit but it’ll still only be about half the size of a typical 3000sqm “full line” supermarket. 

Vincent council’s planning staff have noted the pavement-heavy plans don’t meet the usual rules requiring 25 per cent of a site to have deep soil landscaping: They’ve scored the little on-structure garden beds as being “nil” per cent of the site. 

But it’ll ultimately be decided by a state-led development assessment panel. Plans are out for public comment until February 18 at imagine.vincent.wa.gov.au 

by DAVID BELL