Inner city gets its first new high street in over a century

The first main street built in inner Sydney for more than a century has been completed, paving the way for a new town centre at Green Square.

Ebsworth Street’s footpaths are finished, the stone kerbs installed, bronze smart poles with LED lights are upright and the asphalt road surface is down in readiness for the cafes and new homes being constructed on both sides of the road.

Located next to Green Square Railway station, the 20 metre-wide Ebsworth Street will soon be lined with shops and cafes to form the heart of the 14-hectare Green Square Town Centre that will be home to 6,800 residents and 8,000 workers.

“After so much planning and preparation, it’s rewarding to see the heart of this new town centre taking shape. Ebsworth Street will be a lively high street with calm traffic and wide pavements for outdoor dining,” Lord Mayor Clover Moore said.

“Development in Green Square is booming, with 50 apartments completed every week. Given that pace of development, it’s critical that appropriate infrastructure is in place for new communities moving in and those who are already living and working there.”

Before work starts on the new shops and apartments, Ebsworth Street will disappear.

Within weeks, large sections will be buried under huge sheets of industrial fabric, covered in sand and topped with a thick layer of concrete.

Encasing the street in this protective cocoon will allow huge trucks and machinery building the apartments to move around freely without damaging the footpaths, roadways and the services beneath them.

Once the first buildings are ready next year, the concrete blanket will be peeled off. It will reveal a street ready for people to use and enjoy. As well as the footpaths and roadway, all the infrastructure – including gas, electricity, water and recycled water, NBN cabling and drainage – will already be in place and ready for use.

This innovative technique of building then burying a street will ensure the first residents of the new town centre won’t have to wait months while major public works are carried out.

The first glimpse of Ebsworth Street shows it is a smaller, modern equivalent of traditional high streets like Glebe Point Road and King Street in Newtown, which developed in the 19th century when most of inner Sydney’s streets took shape.

Lord Mayor Clover Moore and NSW Minister for Planning Rob Stokes inspected Ebsworth Street yesterday and discussed the rapid progress being made in the heart of Green Square.

Just four kilometres from Sydney Town Hall, the 220 metre long Ebsworth Street is part of a new road network built on former industrial land that was once the centre of Sydney’s manufacturing industries.

Private developers including Mirvac are building the new homes, shops and workplaces within the network will make up the centre of one of the largest urban renewal precincts in the country.

Known as the Green Square Town Centre, it will be the biggest new village built in inner Sydney for more than 100 years with a cost estimated at around $2 billion.

Mirvac, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz said the delivery of infrastructure at the site marked further progress of the precinct.

“It is exciting to see the Green Square Town Centre coming to life. The high street will be a focal point and meeting place for the community. It will also seamlessly connect footpaths and cycling tracks throughout the precinct, providing people with natural routes to the surrounding neighbourhood and setting the tone for a sustainable lifestyle,” said Ms Lloyd-Hurwitz.

The City of Sydney has designed and funded the new streets in the Green Square Town Centre, where it is also building important new community facilities including a library, playing fields, parks and an aquatic centre for one of the fastest growing areas in NSW.

Source: News Release, City of Sydney, 28 August, 2015

http://www.sydneymedia.com.au/inner-city-gets-its-first-new-high-street-in-a-century/