THERE has been no lack of big ideas for the Bathurst CBD over recent years - from apartments in silos to blocked-off roads.
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Amid the current debate about whether the Bathurst CBD is ailing - and, if so, what can be done about it - the Advocate has taken a look back at some of the more ambitious suggestions for the centre of our city in recent times.
Down on the corner
IT remains an eyesore on a busy corner, but there was a time when the old Dairy Farmers site on Bentinck Street was soon going to be the home of a Quest serviced apartments development.
A multi-million-dollar development application was approved back in 2019 for serviced apartments, a commercial office suite and a piazza on the CBD site, which had been vacant for many years.
Two years later, as the site remained quiet, Bathurst Regional Council's director of environmental, planning and building services, Neil Southorn, said council was "hopeful that it's not long before the Quest development starts to emerge".
As of 2024, however, no progress has been made.
Down the road at Orange, a Quest Apartments development in that city's CBD was approved in 2011 and opened in 2019.
Silo apartments
FORMER Tremain's Mill owner Stephen Birrell was not afraid of thinking big in the early years after he bought the sprawling Keppel Street site.
In mid-2017, he teamed up with Charles Sturt University's engineering department to develop plans to construct luxury apartments in the mill precinct's timber silos, stipulating that the complex must have a rooftop garden.
There are 18 wooden silos at the mill, in two groups of nine, built from Oregon timber and located just behind the concrete silos.
The students ended up presenting their design ideas to retrofit the silos into multi-storey apartments to Mr Birrell later that year.
Open or closed?
A SUGGESTION to close off one block of Russell Street on a permanent basis did not receive a lot of support back in 2021.
It was one of a number of concepts put forward by architecture company Allen Jack + Cottier in the Bathurst Town Centre Master Plan.
If the plan had been adopted as written, Russell Street would have one day been closed between William and George streets to make way for a "permanent events plaza".
Council staff said they did not support the closure and councillors and the community were also not keen.
"I wouldn't like to see that closed at any time, for any reason, other than the times we do it now, just for short-term sort of stuff," then-councillor Alex Christian said.
"I think any permanent closure should be out of the question, it's that simple.
"Regardless of certain car parking and things like that, I think pushing traffic onto other roads will only cause a nightmare."
Link the parks
AN urban planning and regional economic development expert was also interested in the Russell Street block between William and George when he visited Bathurst in 2019.
Professor Ed Blakely - best known for overseeing recovery management in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, but who also worked on the Whitlam government's decentralisation program in the 1970s - said Machattie Park felt unfinished to him because it was separated from Kings Parade.
"I feel very comfortable in it, but it's not complete," he said. "And I wonder why."
The Klyde Warren Park in Dallas, Texas, which opened in 2012 after being built over a section of freeway, transformed that city, he said.
"It was a divided area like this. And then they put eating stands there, outdoor libraries; it's a place that almost everybody goes once a day for lunch, for an evening concert, for meditation," he said. "It becomes the heart and soul of the city.
"And you have the asset here that's got bitumen on it."
Car park conversation
COUNCILLOR Ian North had been talking about a three-level car park at Carrington Park as far back as 2014 and, in 2019, he said a company had contacted him after taking an interest in parking in Bathurst's CBD.
He said he had spoken to many community members about parking, and the response generally was that there simply weren't enough all-day options available around the CBD.
He said women had also reported feeling nervous about walking to their cars at the end of the day.
"They're finding that they are having to park further and further away from town, especially in winter when it's cold and gets dark earlier," he said.
Cr North said the company looking to help Bathurst improve parking was interested in coming to the city to meet with council staff.
"It's only early stages, but the fact they have contacted me gives me hope," he said.
