Parramatta City Council has exhibited a $100M urban design plan to revitalise its riverfront that would carve out a new quay allowing ferry’s right up to the CBD.
As part of a series of design competions for Parramatta, the council asked landscape architecture firm McGregor Coxall to prepare a plan to help ''position the city as the driving force and heart of Australia's most significant economic region''.
Images via McGregor Coxall
The new urban design strategy publicly exhibited last week would allow ferry’s to travel an additional 400 metres up Parramatta River, which stems from Darling Harbour.
The city council's riverside car park would be demolished with the land excavated to carve out a new Parramatta quay.
Channels would be made deeper and the bay made big enough for ferries to enter and turn around.
McGregor Coxall’s Urban Design Strategy encompasses 31 ha on the Parramatta River foreshore.
The project analysed key development sites, heritage items, ESD, open space, water and cultural assets as a basis for building a new city brand and waterfront
The plan says “the meeting point of the harbour and river was used for a brand proposition titled ‘Where The Waters Meet’. The design reorientates the city back to the river and proposes four new vibrant mixed use River Quarters. Parramatta Quay was conceived as a new water arrival point connecting the CBD to Circular Quay by ferry and creating a public and private domain of international quality.”
“The urban strategy will be refined into a masterplan and business case for government to partner with the private sector for delivery,” it concludes.
Parramatta mayor John Chedid was quoted in Fairfax Media saying the council has no budget for the plan but he would seek to implement it in stages by working with developers and state and federal governments.
He expected tenders would be called to redevelop the car park as early as next year and the council would try to negotiate a deal where a developer built ''Parramatta Quay'' as part of a larger project.
