Parramatta City Council has sought the help of Ed Blakely, who helped rebuild New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, to “transform” the Church Street Mall, in front of the town hall, by June next year.
Professor Blakely, a former US national and now an Australian citizen, is an urban planning expert attached to the University of Sydney's United States Study Centre, and will work on the project with US-based urban designer, Ethan Kent, who helped transform New York's famous Times Square.
These high profile people aim to revitalise the space by June next year, at a cost up to $2 million, subject to public consultation.
The visit to Parramatta by Professor Blakely and Mr Kent, the vice president of the Project for Public Spaces, who has worked on over 200 projects in the USA and overseas, follows council’s participation in a United States Studies Centre’s Future Cities Mayors Program, to the USA which was led by Professor Blakely Another tour participant.
Liverpool City Council in partnership with Sydney University recently conducted an Urban Design Symposium at which Professor Blakely, who has been retained by council, spoke.
The all-day event was the start of a project aimed at assisting council with its plans to revitalise the city centre. Meanwhile, council has called for expressions of interests for the operation and management of the Liverpool Night Markets to be held on Friday and Saturday evenings as a means to liven up and to encourage pedestrian activity in the CBD, in particular, between Macquarie Street Mall and the southern end of the city centre.
A report prepared by property consulting firm, Urbis, noted that Starry Sari Night, a Bollywood film night, held in August, was successful in encouraging people into the CBD at night and indicated the same could be expected for the night markets.
Turning to Penrith, where yet another American, Mike Lydon, described by Penrith Mayor, Mark Davies, as a “leading US tactical urbanist” has guided a group of business people, residents, architects and others in council’s Make My Park Pop project.
The group, together with place-making specialists Place Partners and The Lot, aims is to “radically and rapidly transform an under-used asphalt space into a buzzing CBD park installation”.
Clr Davies said the project – part of council’s $17 million CBD masterplan – would help to revitalise High Street’s economy and be a blueprint for other Australian communities placing radical urban transformation in local hands.
The “exciting and edgy new space” is scheduled to open on October 23. Blacktown City Council also participated in the tour to the USA and will include the findings as part of the master planning process for the Warwick Lane CBD site. Western Sydney councils on the tour were Blacktown, Liverpool and Parramatta, together with Botany Bay, Waverley and Woollahra.
