Major construction work has started on Adelaide’s first skyscraper but it will not include an airbridge to state parliament as previously mooted and will be completed a year later than expected.
Festival Tower Two will be 160 metres tall — 10 metres taller than what is generally considered a skyscraper.
Walker Corporation is building the $800 million, 38-storey tower between Parliament House and the Festival Theatre, on an area of state government-owned land known as Festival Plaza.
An artist’s impression of the retail and restaurant precinct between Festival Tower Two (left), Festival Tower One (right) and Parliament House. (Supplied: SA government)
Premier Peter Malinauskas said construction work on the tower would create more than 1,300 jobs and up to 5,000 people would work in the building once it was completed.
It will stand alongside Festival Tower One, which opened in 2024, and above the underground Festival Car Park that was completed in 2021.
“The second tower at Festival Plaza will take what was a completely disused and rundown plaza and bring it to life with commerce, culture and, most importantly, people,” Mr Malinauskas said.
He said a proposal for an airbridge between the new tower and parliament would not go ahead.
“There was an opportunity for a hole to be cut in the northern facade of the parliament and put an airbridge from the parliament into the tower … for the purposes of offices for MPs or their staff,” Mr Malinauskas said.
“[But] considering the cost and the heritage implications, on balance we decided it wasn’t a good idea, so we didn’t approve it.”
The site had been an underused concrete plaza. (ABC News)
Save Festival Plaza Alliance convenor Robert Farnan said the site was inappropriate, and would put parliament in a permanent shadow.
He said a previous proposal for a three-storey building on the site was better.Â
“Putting an office in the middle of a plaza is ridiculous and we’re going to become a bit of a national joke,” Mr Farnan said.Delay in work finishing
Planning Minister Nick Champion said construction would continue until the end of 2028, rather than next year.
“Obviously, as things pass through the planning system, you have to meet all of those gateways and that’s what’s probably affected the timeline in this instance,” Mr Champion said.
Weird uses of Adelaide Park Lands
He would not be drawn on how much money Walker Corporation was paying to lease the land overlooking the River Torrens.
But the premier said it was much more than $1 a year that had been reported in other media.
“What I can tell you is that the state government is making a lot more money than that – a lot more,” Mr Malinauskas said.
Greens MP Robert Simms said the two towers were “a total waste of this prime real estate”.
“It’s a symbol of the power of developers in our democracy that we don’t just have one monstrosity towering over Parliament House, we’re now going to have two,” Mr Simms said.
Opposition Leader Ashton Hurn said the second Festival Tower would be “good for the skyline”.
“There are many opponents to it, but we’re not one of them,” she said.
Not enough money for gallery
Four years ago, the former Liberal state government announced construction was starting on an Aboriginal arts and cultural centre to be known as Tarrkarri, on the site of the old Royal Adelaide Hospital, also in the Adelaide Parklands not far from North Terrace.
But Mr Malinauskas’s government put a halt to the work and announced a review into a cost blowout in the project, the results of which have not been released.
Tarrkarri was set to feature exhibition and performance spaces, terraced landscapes and a gathering area for cultural ceremonies. (Supplied: Woods Bagot)
Today, the premier said it was down to a lack of money from other sources.
He jokingly asked Walker Corporation chief executive David Gallant if he could contribute “a few hundred million” towards it at the tower announcement.
“The government’s policy position has not changed,” Mr Malinauskas said.
“We would love to see this happen, but we want to make sure it’s done properly and that requires additional sources of funding and those sources of funding have to come from outside the state government as well and we continue to look at those opportunities.”
The opposition leader said the area where Tarrkarri was meant to be built had become “a shameful dust bowl”.
Ms Hurn said the Liberal Party’s plans for the project and the site would be revealed before the state election on March 21.