Bonython Tower site June 2017

My apologies for posting no update last week. I was flat out on the sofa surrounded by flu medications, tissues and cough suppressants.

Overnight, about a week ago, a building on Mann Street Gosford vanished. One afternoon it was there and the next morning it was gone.

It was the bar with the palms at the front and the narrow Little Barber Shoppe beside it. Some locals may remember the black and white photos of old Gosford in the barber shop.

In the photo above, the buildings on either side of the site are the Imperial Arcade (left) and the Gosford Central Plaza (right). The white 4-wheel-drive in the intersection is on Erina Street and the Hotel Gosford is behind it. We are looking roughly north up Mann Street, towards North Gosford.

The screens across the front of the site say “Bonython Tower”. That’s the official name of the proposed building known locally as the Singo tower, after its instigator the well-known Australian businessman John Singleton. In late 2016 or early 2017, there was an article in the local newspaper about Singo’s desire to kick-start the new Gosford, the high-rise Gosford we’re seeing the start of now.

(Incidentally, you can see Singo's clifftop house in Sydney in Cleverman on the ABC on Thursday nights. http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/cleverman-abcs-indigenous-superheroes-in-eerie-dystopian-drama-starring-iain-glen-and-frances-oconnor-20160518-goy0ry.html)

This tower has been publicised as “mixed use...including restaurant, offices, and shop top housing” with luxury apartments. Views on the southern side of the tower should have views not just down the length of Brisbane Water but perhaps also into Pittwater in Sydney. The site is a mere 3 minutes’ walk from the railway station so it would be no hardship to live there and commute to Sydney for that luxury income needed to buy into such an apartment tower.

As for the amount of shadow Singo’s tower will throw over Gosford, and how much the other towers to come will throw over it, only time will tell. Certainly, it and they will change the feel of Gosford enormously.

I had intended to collect some snaps of the Singo tower side of Mann Street one day last week but went home early instead. Not that I would have seen the old building coming down anyway, with it being demolished in a single night, according to several people who catch the bus nearby.

The site of the Bonython Tower is in blue.

Behind the site, Paul Lane runs between the southern side of the Imperial Arcade and Gosford Central Plaza on the left. The very edge of Paul Lane can be seen in this photo where the orange feet of the blue fence are and in the photo below.

  

Clean up takes longer than demolition.

Across the street, facing the site, we can see a bank, a bakery, a finance office and, to the right, a few other small shops with two floors of offices above. Behind them we can see the Council’s multi-storey carpark, another multi-storey carpark (the railway runs between the carparks) then Showground Road, Kendall Street, a small block of commuter apartments and Presidents Hill.

Links

Bonython Tower looks like being first cab off the rank (15th December 2016) - http://coastcommunitynews.com.au/2016/12/bonython-tower-set-gosford-cbd/

Singo making Gosford great again, with a little help from his friends (20th March 2017) - http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s4638992.htm

Photographs and Images of historical Gosford – http://www.gosford.nsw.gov.au/libraries/history/local-history/photographs-and-images

I will be taking many more photos and so, over time, we'll see what else changes and what doesn't, what we don't like and what we do like.

Come back next week for more photos and maps. Or enter your email address in the inbox pinger thing below or in the sidebar.

Woy Woy Peninsula early June 2017

Brisbane Water

Brisbane Water is a saltwater estuary and is open to the mouth of Broken Bay, just north of Sydney. It is close enough to Sydney that a ferry runs daily from Ettalong, on the Woy Woy peninsula, to Palm Beach on the northernmost beach of Sydney.

You can see Gosford marked in red at the top of this map and Woy Woy marked about halfway down on the left, also in red. Woy Woy and its peninsula are within the area known as the Greater Gosford and within the Gosford City Council boundaries. Gosford and Woy Woy are about 20 minutes’ drive apart, along Brisbane Water Drive which runs down the west side of Brisbane Water and very close to the water itself, a lovely drive.

Chambers Place Woy Woy

Woy Woy’s skyline is changing again. These new flats in Chambers Place were in mid construction in September 2016. Photo taken from Blackwall Road.

The same flats in early June 2017. They are very nearly finished.

This building is four storeys tall. The only taller buildings in the village of Woy Woy are the 5 or 6 storey Council carpark beside Deepwater Plaza and opposite the railway station and the clock tower on the Clocktower building between the carpark and the railway station.

Before ground was broken on this site, an article in the Peninsula News said this building would have small flats for low-income renters on the upper floors and a few offices and shops on the bottom floor. As it is now, it’s hard to see where the carpark at the bottom ends and where the shops and/or offices will be.

Terry Avenue Woy Woy

Blackwall Road flats, at the corner of Terry Avenue and next to the pool, in May 2017. There are few blocks of flats on the Woy Woy peninsula, though there are plenty of the villa-style units, including a few 2-storey villa units.

The villa units tend to run the depth of the land they’re on, lined up backwards from the road rather than along it, more often than not. That softens the visual impact of such dense housing. A multi-storey block of flats has nowhere to hide and can fit more dwellings onto the same amount of land. So blocks of flats, large and small, will change the visual landscape of the Woy Woy peninsula more quickly than more of the villa-style units.

Villa-style units have been popular on the Woy Woy peninsula primarily because of the high population of the elderly there. That is, elderly and arthritic people tend to prefer single-storey housing and so single-storey housing has been dominant.

This block of flats is more likely to appeal to the commuter market. The bus-stop to the railway station is right outside the swimming pool next door and from Woy Woy station to Sydney’s Central station is a mere 70 minutes on the fast train. Add to that commuting time the lovely Brisbane Water just a short walk away from these flats and I can easily see why they would be attractive to commuters.

(By the way, I extol the virtues of the Gosford/Brisbane Water area because I live here and I love it. I receive no payment as a result of running this website. I do it because it interests me.)

Early June 2017 at the Blackwall Road/Terry Avenue flats. Construction is all but finished and some exterior painting has been done, as you can see from the side with the orange and fashionable grey. The windows are in too.

This site was previously an empty weed-strewn piece of land where an old petrol station once stood. From my fairly hazy memory of the petrol station, I would say it was built in the 1940’s. If any local has more accurate information on it, please put it in the comments box below.

I will be taking many more photos and so, over time, we'll see what changes and what doesn't, what we don't like and what we do like.

Come back next week for more photos and maps. Or enter your email address where it says "Folloe By Email" in the sidebar at the right.