Built Environment

Walsh Bay
Heritage For The Future

Walsh Bay, with its finger wharves and warehouses, has been the subject of intense and prolonged speculation on its future shape and use. One of the largest developments of a heritage site in Sydney, the $650m Walsh Bay project in its final form is intended by the State Government to be a cultural and recreational hub for the city.

Above: A new scheme will see Walsh Bay, on the western side of the Harbour Bridge, become a dynamic new cultural and recreational centre for Sydney. Photograph by Leanne Gould

Above: Interior of one of the finger wharves at Walsh Bay, which were built early this century for the movement and storage of goods. Photograph by Leanne Gould

When the wharves at Walsh Bay were constructed, they were an innovative response to the storage and unloading needs of the busy port of Sydney. They were built by the Sydney Harbour Trust as part of its large scale urban and port renewal plan to combat the plague outbreak at the turn of the century.

Today the disused wharves and the streets around them are a somewhat forlorn reminder of the days when Sydney Harbour was a busy working port. But in a major commitment by the State Government and the private sector, the wharves at Hickson Road and the surrounding precinct known as Walsh Bay are to be reborn. After a world wide re-development tender process the Heritage Council has approved a plan which will see Walsh Bay become one of Sydney's most dynamic cultural and recreational precincts, coupled with a major new residential and commercial development.

The main features of the plan are:

  • conservation and development of wharves 2 & 3 as a cultural centre;

  • a 1 000 seat theatre on the site of the Bond Stores in Hickson Road;

  • upgrading of wharves 4 & 5 and retention of their current use for cultural activities;

  • the creation of a public promenade along the water's edge;

  • construction of a residential building on the area currently occupied by wharves 6 & 7;

  • adaptive reuse of wharves 8 & 9 for a hotel, with finishes in keeping with the overall significance of the area.
The Government's original call document sought to retain the heritage characteristics of the precinct in any development of the Walsh Bay site. However, the discovery of much greater termite infestation than anticipated in the wharves and shore sheds required at least a $50 million injection of cash to save the wharves. The successful tenderer, Walsh Bay Properties, indicated to the Government that for the project to go ahead and be financially viable, at least two wharves would require demolition. This was unacceptable to the Government, and together with the unforeseen cost, the fate of the wharves - and the entire project - was at an impasse.

The Government invited Phillipe Robert, a renowned French architect with particular expertise in the adaptive reuse of industrial heritage sites, to review the project. Under Robert's concept wharves 2 & 3, 4 & 5 and 8 & 9 will be retained. Wharves 6 & 7 and elements of the shore sheds (with the exception of the Hickson Road facade) will be replaced with a residential building to contain 400 units and underground parking. The space left vacant by the demolished shore sheds will be filled with a 500 metre long public promenade.

The plan has not been without its critics. However, key defenders of heritage have come to support the final version of the Government's vision for Walsh Bay. Notable among these is the Heritage Council, which had initially expressed reservations about the demolition of any of the Hickson Road wharves. However, as Howard Tanner, Deputy Chair of the Council put it; 'A great deal of time has been spent looking at every possible option to save all the wharves, and in an ideal world we would wish that to happen. The reality is, however, that the overall plan would not be financially viable and could not go ahead without some replacement of the wharf structures'.

'I believe the plan in its final form delivers a fantastic new cultural heartland to the people of Sydney and opens up precious waterfront land to the public in a way which has not been possible before.' 'Breathing new life into the past, in the end, is what heritage should be about'.