WITH the Newcastle CBD almost a ghost town because of the coronavirus lockdown, demolition and construction workers are rapidly transforming the Hunter Street mall site that is home to Iris Capital's $700-million East End project.
In recent weeks, framework for the buildings in the first of four stages of the residential/commercial development have been steadily adding storeys, with demolition and site preparation for the second stage buildings opening up vistas between Hunter Street and King Street that have turned once familiar streetscapes into something strikingly unfamiliar.
Were it not for the COVID-19 restrictions, such a demolition spectacle would have drawn a steady stream of onlookers.
As things are, despite the occasional person stop to record the changing landscapes on their phones, there's a sense the work is going on in splendid isolation, while the rest of the world is preoccupied by coronavirus.
IRIS UPDATES: The story so far
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November 2016: NSW government sells former GPT site to Iris Capital
- September 2017 Stage One apartments for sale
- November 2017: $6m for top floor of Washington House
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June 2018: Stage Two rollout begins
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December 2018: Iris Capital buys more Hunter hotels
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March 2019: Second stage gets development approval
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February 2020: East End development sets another apartment record
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April 2020: Hotel for East End project approved
Iris Capital chief executive Sam Arnaout said yesterday that despite the need for social distancing and other COVID-19 workplace restrictions, head builder Richard Crookes Constructions and various other contractors have been able to keep working "without significant delays".
The East End project has two significant aspects that differentiate from most urban housing projects.
Like much of inner Newcastle, the Iris site sits on top of colonial coalmine workings, which have had to be surveyed and then filled with fly-ash and concrete grout.
Mr Arnaout said the costs so far had been considerable, although not enough to be helped by a $17-million NSW government grouting fund.
Subsidence Advisory's website says funding is available to "Zone B" sites - which applies to the mall - once costs exceeded $300 a square metre.
The other big cost item for the East End project is the effort that Iris has gone to in preserving the various heritage facades that are being retained as a key factor in the look of the redesigned mall.
The old David Jones building, for example, has had what Mr Arnaout describes as "bespoke structural hoardings" - massive steel frames bolted to front and sides of the building, held rigid with massive concrete counterweights to ensure the otherwise fragile facades do not sway and break under high wind, or become unstable because of ground movement from nearby demolition.
"It's been a very substantial part of it," Mr Arnaout said.
"We've put millions of dollars into it to preserve the very important heritage fabric, to give it that village feel, that nostalgic throwback to what it has been over time.
"A beautiful blend that will create a very harmonic whole."
Mr Arnaout said he knew of Newcastle's sometimes ambivalent attitude to CBD redevelopment but despite "the occasional naysayer, the overwhelming response to what we're doing has been positive".
He said stage one should be finished by midway through next year, with the hotel towards the end of the year.
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