projects...

The three-year City Renewal program following the 1989 Newcastle Earthquake successfully prevented the "second shock" that often follows major disasters. Central to the recovery programs was a mediation and informal facilitation program that handled 1,224 disputes involving citizens, insurance companies and builders. Over 800 of these required specific facilitation with 40 requiring formal mediation. All were resolved without recourse to litigation.

In 1987 Circular Quay was subject to a $100 million 'Update'. But some lands that were being opened up to the public were still owned and maintained by public authorities with no core interest in new 'Lifestyle' landuses. This project required coordinated intra-government negotiation with Sydney City Council, State Rail Authority, Urban Transit Authority, Sydney Opera House Trust, Maritime Services Board, Sydney Cove Redevelopment Authority and NSW Public Works to have them yield up ownership of some lands and become owners of other lands, and to also assume a new and upgraded long term maintenance obligation for these lands.

Communities can be powerful and influential. A tethered balloon flying at 34 stories high signified a decade of division in the Newcastle community concerning a potential $50 million redevelopment of the Civic Site in Newcastle, and in particular, concerns about heritage conservation. The completion of a comprehensive community consultation program in 1992 and of development consents in 1996 has led to substantial completion of the site to an agreed master plan. The project received a commendation in the 1999 National Trust Heritage Awards for one of the most contentious parts of the site - the Frederick Ash building.

Newcastle Airport is a highly successful commercial joint venture between two Hunter Councils. Growth in passenger throughput and in adjacent aerospace industries has transformed the Civil part of a facility jointly used with Defence. The strategy underpinning Newcastle Airport Limited's own Business Plan required careful introduction of significant new and anticipated non-military growth alongside a long established jet fighter base.

Construction of the $40 m Sydney Opera House Carpark was always going to be contentious. It required excavation of an 11 storey cavern under NSW Government House and the huge old fig trees in Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens. It required its own EIS for approval. It also required amendment to the construction of the Sydney Harbour Tunnel and acquisition of some of the Sydney Harbour Tunnel Company lands. It required negotiation with an array of theatrical unions concerning parking 'rights' around Farm Cove so as to return part of the foreshore of Farm Cove to the Botanic Gardens.

Leasing projects include City Extra, Rossini's, Bilson's, Doyle's, Billy Blue, The Oyster Bar and Porta Bello restaurants around Sydney's Circular Quay and the Blue Water Pizza, Harbourside and Starfish cafes on Newcastle Foreshore.

Major asset maintenance of the City Administration Centre for Newcastle City Council required a comprehensive cost benefit analysis of the options of refurbish, sell, lease or demolish. It led to execution of contracts for the $3.5 m replacement of windows, render and window sills. Maintenance of Queens Wharf Tower (Newcastle), being a highly controversial public icon standing in a hostile maritime and industrial climatic environment required its own customised analysis.

The $70M land acquisition program for Darling Harbour Authority involved negotiations for purchase of 25 freehold and 26 leasehold properties in two years. The program not only involved the negotiation of market realisations for all of the properties, but also in the majority of cases, the need to interpret an array of compensatory "disturbance" claims.

The Newcastle Convict Lumberyard Project was complicated not just by the public sensitivity of preservation of convict heritage in a central business district, but also by a high contract risk profile for construction on a site with an unknown amount of covered historical "latent conditions". The works involved landscaping, public art, sensitive exposure of historic artefacts and erection of an evocative but precision-fabricated steel-frame representation of former convict buildings. Project management required empathy with, and outcomes for multiple interest groupings in order to 'celebrate' a site of world heritage significance.

For the Governor Phillip Tower and Museum of Sydney to be built on an entire city block in Sydney containing the remains of the Colony's First Government House it required packaging of a five-party contract between owners of all the lands between Bridge, Bent, Philip and Young Streets. The project included an International Architectural Competition and completion of a $92 million air-rights sale. It required negotiation of contracts executed by the five landowners; developer Comrealty, investor State Superannuation Board, Sydney City Council and the State Ministers for Heritage and for Public Works, and coordination of the individual advisings of their five large city law firms.

Leasing of the 5 Star Ritz Carlton Hotel (now Sir Stamford Hotel) in Macquarie Street Sydney and of the 4 Star Clarendon Hotel in Hunter Street Newcastle. "Off-the-plan" purchase and construction of the $18 million Headoffice for the Forestry Commission of NSW at Pennant Hills.

Leasing the Nelson Bay Marina complex including both berthing and dry land commercial components not only created a new tourist focus for Nelson Bay, but also established the process for many subsequent Build/Own/Operate/Transfer (BOOT) projects in Sydney and NSW. Its success led to others like the Sydney Opera House Carpark and Manly Wharf.