Introduction     
Downturn
Upgrade?
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Strategy
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  Upgrade? - The Final Insult
 

In 2003, the then Mayor Lucy Turnbull announced Frank Sartor's plans for a $24,000,000 upgrade of Oxford Street's roads and footpaths. It was to be known as the Gateway Project. The community strenuously objected that it was not merely a gateway to Sydney, but a precinct of its own. The name was promptly dropped, but the plan was never revised.

Oxford Street became a six lane highway between two major malls and the airport. Peak hour clearways were created, the median strip was removed, as were the right hand turns off Oxford into Surry Hills and in the 18 months it took for this to happen, a brand new Westfield, complete with 3000+ free parking spaces, opened in Bondi Junction.

At the same time the local post office moved down to Hyde Park. This left 2010 (Darlinghurst and Surry Hills) with a grand total of none central to anywhere.

Additionally council began to empty their largest property (66 Oxford Street) of all its tenants for a development that has never left the drawing board.

Yes, technically there are still
two post offices in 2010.


The upshot of all of this is that achievable rents dropped and the business mix starting shifting towards the only economy that looked like it was going anywhere: the night time economy, the one that now so concerns our leaders.

In a nutshell, the $24,000,000 infrastructure upgrade on Oxford Street was like renting the hall and forgetting to send out the invites.

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