Hargraves Street

Recently finished on Hargraves Street Gosford, September 2017

Hargraves Street is a small new block of apartments recently finished in Gosford. Hargraves Street has only this building in it and the building site below it in the whole street. It's a tiny street. On the other side of the street, the ground falls away sharply, down to the level of a house below on Holden Street.

This apartment block is 4 or 5 minutes walk from Gosford station and about the same distance from the Emergency department of the hospital, should the residents ever need the Emergency department.

The top floors of this building should have views of the trees on Presidents Hill to the back of the building, views over the trees along Holden Street and Kendall Street and views down into Gosford itself as well as straight across the treed serenity of Rumbalara Reserve on the other side of Gosford. I don't know if the eastern side of the building, the Gosford side, has a few little views of Brisbane Water or not. I hope so.

Building site directly beside photo above, September 2017

There was no sign to tell me what this site is. It's hard up against the side of the apartments in the photo above and, as you can see, it's not a big site. Perhaps it will be a carpark for the apartments. That would make sense with the amount of apartments verses the amount of cars parked on this street. We'll just have to wait and see.

Hargraves Street marked in green on left side of map

You can see from this map how close Hargraves Street is to Gosford railway station for commuter residents and how close it is to Mann Street, the main street of Gosford.

Just under the words "Hargraves Street" on this map, you can see the word "hill" in black. That's Presidents Hill. On the other side of the map, again in black, you can see "Rumbalara Reserve". Between those two hills is the commercial heart of Gosford, a mere 8 streets wide. And that narrowness, caused by Gosford in the narrow mouth of the Narara Valley, is why Gosford must have all these thrusting new towers as it's population grows and cannot remain the town is now, in September 2017 and before the first tower is finished. The future has good and bad in it but it cannot be avoided.


Extra

Rhythm Hut Faunce Street Gosford

 
Colourful mural on a wall outside the Rhythm Hut in Faunce Street. A little local colour to finish off the page.

Today's Pages

Point Frederick apartments
Singo's Tower AKA Bonython Tower
Narringa
Hills Street & Dwyer Street

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Singo’s Tower AKA Bonython Tower

Crane at Singo's site from Baker Street, 7th September 2017

 

 

The crane at the Bonython Tower site towers over Mann Street and the whole of Gosford. It gives us a hint of just how massive the tower will be when it’s finished, in comparison to our small quiet town. And this is just the first of the big changes.

Presidents Hill in the background, 7th September 2017

The eagle-eyed will have noticed the crane in the background of this photo, which locals will know is away on the other side of the railway. That crane in the background is on Donnison Street West, by the look of it. With so much on the other building sites to publish this week, an update on that one will have to wait until next week. (For updates to your inbox, put your email address into the pinger thing in the sidebar to the right.)

Before, 31st August 2017

After, 7th September 2017

The before photo at the top of this pair, with the pipes laid, and the after photo at the bottom, with the concrete poured over the top of the pipes. The plan for this bottom floor of the tower is a restaurant, so the pipes at this end of the site are probably plumbing. We’ll find out when the whole tower is finished and we can go in and have a nose around.

Loading dock area, 7th September 2017

This is the loading dock area at the back of the site, where it lets onto Paul Lane off William Street. The zigzag wall on the right of the photo is new this week.

Structures are growing all over the site, though some are rather more mysterious than this one and we’ll just have to wait and see what they are when they’re finished and have fun guessing in the meantime.

Mystery structure, 7th September 2017

Mystery structure at the back. We haven’t had proper rain for weeks, so that must be ground water in the big hole. And men at work around one of the foundation pylons.

Hard at work, 7th September 2017

Hard-hatted workers hard at work in the late afternoon sun.


Come back next week or put your email address into the sidebar to the right for updates to your inbox.

Narringa

Narringa, 7th September 2017

Narringa's entrance, 7th September 2017

Narringa is now looking all but finished. It won't be too long before we start to see potted plants and cane chairs on the balconies.

Townhouses at the back of Narringa, 7th September 2017

The two townhouses at the back are much further along this week. The apartments are in the bigger building at the front, looking across towards the water.



Paving being laid at the front of the entrance to the apartments. Not much is left to be done outside, just fencing and landscaping from what I could see. The tradies were mostly too busy to talk to so it's hard to tell how much work is still to be done inside.


More photos and chat next week. If you want updates in your inbox, put your address in the box in the sidebar to the right.

Hills Street & Dwyer Street

Hills Street, 1st September 2017

The Hills Street apartments are a little bit closer to completion this week.

Hills Street, 1st September 2017

Potted plants ready to into the planter box in the side wall of the Hills Street site. Another sign it's nearly finished.

(The crane in the right background is on the Gosford Hospital site, where the bit new building is going on at the Cape Street North side of the hospital grounds.)

Hills Street, 1st September 2017

Even the letterboxes and the outside lighting are done now. It can't be more than a few more weeks of fiddling fixtures and fittings being finished inside, before the buyers start moving in.



 Dwyer Street

Nothing to report. No visible change. The workers on site said it'll be finished soon but most of the work left to do is inside and so it's invisible to the naked eye. Though I can say there's still some work to be done on the edges of the site, in terms of laying concrete and/or pavers and so on.


Come back again next week for more fun watching my home town change and grow.

Point Frederick

Albany Street, 2nd September 2017

Albany Street Point Frederick, on the corner of York Street. Some people call this area along the main road there, York Street, East Gosford but it's technically Point Frederick.

Pt Frederick is a long thin peninsula thrusting southwards into Brisbane Water and the top floor of this block, perhaps the top few floors, should have a pretty good view down the length of Brisbane Water. I'm not sure if they can see the lighthouse at Barrenjoey Head from this spot. It will be nice if they can. Who doesn't want to see a lighthouse from their window?

Lynn Avenue, 2nd September

Block of flats on Lynn Avenue Pt Frederick, just behind the yacht club. The outside of this apartment block has not changed in a couple of months. We can only assume there's a lot of work going on inside.

Lynn Avenue, 2nd September 2017

Two doors down is this cleared site, which goes all the way up to Albany Street, coming out two doors down from the photo at the top of this page.

This one is another of the luxury apartment blocks, not a very tall one but a mere one street back from the yacht club and, with a sea-going vessel of one's very own, one could quite easily commute to Sydney from this site. The views from the floors above the old trees at the yacht club will have lovely views down the length of Brisbane Water to Ettalong.


Come back again next week for more photos and chat and watch this small town grow.

Today's Pages

Neera Road Umina Beach is the second tiny house site in the Gosford area. You can find out what a "tiny house" is here: Tiny House Site

Gosford's skyline has subtly but changed: http://changinggosford.blogspot.com.au/2017/09/subtle-but-definite-skyline-change-in.html


Come back next week for more changes to the small town of Gosford, set on the edge of the sparkling Brisbane Water, just an hour from Sydney. Or get updates delivered to your inbox by typing your email address into the box in the sidebar to the right.

Subtle but Definite Skyline Change in Gosford

There has been a subtle but definite change in the Gosford skyline.

A tall yellow crane has been erected inside the Bonython Tower (Singo’s tower) building site and it now towers over Mann Street.

 

May 2017

30th August 2017

The crane is only just visible from a distance but its size gives us a hint of how much difference the tower will make to the Gosford skyline when it’s finished.

It was very tricky to get a photo of the crane. It was very busy swinging about picking up this and that and putting it down again and wasn't often side on as it is in this photo. But that busyness suggests the cracking pace this site as set so far will keep up and it won't be too long before the tower itself starts to show above the hoardings.

Come back next week for more updates on the numerous building sites we have in and around Gosford. Or pop over to Locally Owned Locally Made Gosford to avoid the Christmas rush.

Singo's tower AKA Bonython Tower

Cranes at the Bonython Tower site towering high above Gosford. Kibble Park in the foreground.

(Just a brief bit of wording for today's page as I'm not very well today.)

Fearless workers climbing around the outside of the yellow tower wrangling the cab of the crane into place. You wouldn't get me up there for love or money.

The tower of the yellow crane is solidly anchored against the north side of the site.

The yellow tower of the crane under construction and the red and white mobile crane on its truck.

Preparing to lift the swinging arm of the yellow crane up to be fixed to the top of the tower. That's it on the back of the truck in the laneway.

Just for pretty. Carpark light, mobile crane and tower of the yellow crane.

That's it for today. I need to lay down again. Come back next week for more building site excitement as we watch Gosford grow before our very eyes.

Neera Road

This is the second tiny house site in the Gosford area. It's in Neera Road Umina Beach and, as you can see, they haven't yet broken ground on it.

Perhaps they'll finish the first site at the corner of Showground Road and Racecourse Road in Gosford first, across the road from the old high school. I would have included a photo of it here but very little visible work has happened there since my last update on the site on the 18th of August 2017: http://changinggosford.blogspot.com.au/2017/08/tiny-house-site.html


Want to buy your Christmas presents and gift certificates from locally owned Gosford businesses? There's a few of them right here: Locally Owned Locally Made Gosford.

Singo’s tower AKA Bonython Tower

Pages published today:

1. This one

2. Tiny Houses Site

3. Watt Street Sites

Barber & Dutton’s Tavern 1^st May 2017

I thought I’d missed the chance to get a photo of the buildings knocked down when this site was cleared. But I stumbled across this photo, taken on the 1^st of May 2017, on my computer. I don’t have one taken at street level but in this photo we can see the old barber’s shop, behind the tree, and Dutton’s Tavern taking up the width of the other low-rise building there. The Dutton’s building looks as though it was built after 1890 and before 1915. The original window, the one at the right end, supports my theory. The barber’s building is probably from the same time or a bit earlier. It looks as though its facade has been modernised since then.

16^th August 2017

When I was taking this photo and the ones below, I was lucky enough to get a few minutes chat with someone involved in the building site. He told me the flat area of the site behind the ledge we can now see across the middle of this photo is the loading deck and it had to be cut so the dock is level with the access lane at the back of the site because the site had a slight but distinct slope from back to front.

 

In the bottom level of this tower there will be a restaurant. The 2 levels above will be offices, there’ll be a carpark above that and then the rest of the tower will be those nice luxury apartments.

And I hope I get to see the views from the top of this tower. I’d like to see what the Brisbane Water looks like from up there and how much of Sydney can be seen from the top floors, whether the top floors can see Terrigal Beach as well as the Tasman Sea to the east, whether they can see the whole of the Blue Mountains to the west and how far up the Central Coast they can see to the north.

16th August 2017

Meanwhile, the site continues to come along at a good speed. This is it on the 16th of August 2017, two days ago. Fresher photos below.

18th August 2017

Just before the end of the working day on Thursday 18^th of August on the Bonython Tower site.

18^th August 2017

Orange fencing marking the ledge of the loading dock area and diggers and shovelers at work.

18th August 2017

We’re seeing elbows and backs, as the Roy Orbison song says, and the digger hard at work too. And, just above the digger, to other scoop sizes it can change to for different sizes of hole and for lifting and moving piles of dirt.

Got something to say? Click below on “comments” and type into the box that appears. Be nice.

The other two pages I published today on this website are Tiny Houses Site and the Watt Street Sites.

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