Perth Voice Interactive

A SPRAWLING six-building village of hotel rooms, apartments, offices, shops and venues will replace the Newcastle Street block currently dominated by the dormant City Motors car yard in the West Perth Pickle District. 

APPL Group’s $107 million project, dubbed Sydney Charles Quarter after the car yard founder, had largely won the support of locals and Vincent council planning staff. 

The public reaction is a far cry from the nearby Bunnings development a little to the west, which was decried for displacing an array of small businesses and arts venues and replacing them with a flat, monolithic hardware store.

At the November 7 Joint Development Assessment Panel meeting both the three state government-appointed members and the two Vincent council representatives voted to approve Sydney Charles Quarter.

The only tinge of criticism came from the designs not taking full advantage of the corner site: Vincent’s visioning document for the area suggested a building anywhere from 7 to 21 storeys on this landmark site, and SCQ’s tallest building only hits seven storeys. 

Cr Ashley Wallace said it was “a very strong design” but “maybe a little bit light, in my opinion”.

Cr Jonathan Hallett agreed the site would be “slightly underdeveloped in some ways” but overall it was “a desirable application” for an area where they’d been hoping to see some progress. 

A written critique also came from the chair of the Pickle District town team, Jon Denaro. The group wants to see the area rejuvenated, but without losing its arty soul. Mr Denaro said while he was not opposed to the development, he wanted to see more “long-term arts activation” and “not tokenistic sculptures and artworks with no link to the people and community”. 

The developer will have to set aside 1 per cent of the total for public artwork, and the Pickle District team has requested to be involved in planning for that $1.07m spend.

In a post-meeting statement new Vincent mayor Alison Xamon said: “This mixed-use urban village will be the largest development the Pickle District has ever seen.”

Ms Xamon said it lined up with Vincent’s planning framework “as it will provide high quality pedestrian amenity, connection to the rest of the precinct and opportunities to boost the area’s highly-valued arts and creative culture”.

She said it’d bring in more visitors to the area and the wider community would benefit from the much-needed public green spaces and supermarket on-site.

The Old Pickle Factory, from which the precinct gets its relatively recent moniker, will be refurbished and continue operating as an events space.

by DAVID BELL