We should all hope Perth’s latest ‘iconic’ opportunity lives up to its billing

“Yagan Square is a place unlike anywhere else in the city,” says the marketing copy on the DevelopmentWA website, and ain’t that the truth.

It is exposed to the extremes of the elements and an unpleasant place to gather. At its most populated, it is a mere thoroughfare for those getting on and off the buses at the underground bus station or walking between Wellington and Roe Streets.

The adjacent market hall building has been a commercial catastrophe and is now the subject of a reboot, with the operators of Fremantle’s Old Synagogue and Mt Lawley’s The Beaufort now the preferred proponents for a reboot.

Further west there are nondescript commercial high-rises and a popular pub, yet the precinct remains oddly disconnected from the RAC Arena and the expanse of Wellington Street, plus the bus tunnel, means the whole project has fallen short of its original aspiration to reconnect the CBD with Northbridge.

Much hinges on the development of the new Edith Cowan University campus; it is the final chance to salvage what must at this point be regarded as in danger of being the biggest missed opportunity in Perth’s modern history.

More successful has been the redevelopment of the old Land Titles office and Treasury building, now known as the State Buildings, by Adrian Fini’s FJM.

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To be sure, the proponents were gifted a generous lease deal by the Barnett state government to subsidise the renovation of the heritage buildings but what has been created is a high-class hotel and curated food and beverage offering that has proven enduringly popular in what can be a fickle Perth hospitality scene.

Fini has remarked that he could not die happy if the Terrace Road site remains an ugly undeveloped car park and his company, Hesperia, has drawn up plans for the site that would involve commercial, cultural and public uses including a new headquarters for the WA Police Force.

That particular vision looks like a non-starter given this week’s announcement; rare is the opportunity Hesperia has missed in recent years.

In 2006, the same patch of bitumen was the subject of another vision, that of the Perth City Council led by cantankerous former lord mayor Peter Nattrass.

He wanted a string of cultural venues to be constructed around a new artificial lake where the car park stands, complementing the Concert Hall to create a “world-class” performing arts precinct that would include a lyric theatre, and homes for the WA Symphony Orchestra and WA Ballet.

The then-Labor government opted for a new state theatre centre in Northbridge instead and the WA Ballet moved out to Maylands; Nattrass had neither political support nor money.

And that’s long been the political history of the development of central Perth: the tussle between the underpowered municipal authority (the City of Perth) and the party with the purse strings (the state government).

Thus the disconnected array of precincts that run from east to west to north: the original East Perth Redevelopment Authority area (state), the extinct sandpit of the Riverside project (state), the undercooked and failing Point Fraser development (city), Elizabeth Quay and the too-small Swan Bells (state), Cathedral Square and (impressive) City of Perth Library, the brilliant Boola Bardip state museum as part of a Cultural Centre that needs work (state) and the aforementioned City Link.

None of it quite hangs together in any cohesive way but now another “iconic” opportunity is pursued.

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The Terrace Road site was selected among six options by a six-person Whadjuk cultural authority representative group because of its connection to the Swan River (Derbal Yerrigan), Heirisson Island (Matta Gerup) and Kings Park (Katta Koomba).

We should all hope the centre lives up to its billing; Aboriginal stories and culture are West Australian stories and culture and they deserve to be understood as unique, proud and mainstream part of our state’s heritage.

Barry Winmar, of the Whadjuk representative group, said: “It’s the first time in a long time that Aboriginal people have got a voice at a high level of government to be able to influence and contribute in a way that exemplifies what Aboriginal culture is about WA.”

There is $104 million committed from the state and federal governments; again the City of Perth is on the outer, which has caused its own political intrigue given speculation Premier Mark McGowan refuses to appear alongside Lord Mayor Basil Zempilas amid the perception he may be a future state Liberal aspirant.

At least another $300 million needs to be raised and the mining sector is in the frame; Rio Tinto chief executive Jakob Stausholm – who has spent his tenure trying to clean up the global reputational fallout from the mining giant’s destruction of culturally significant Pilbara caves – has already made it known the company is ready to contribute.

Is it enough to create a new Opera House, Guggenheim or Pompidou? It simply has to be.

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