Opinion by ALEX NELSON
A month ago, Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro, along with local ministers Bill Yan and Joshua Burgoyne, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Alice Springs Town Council to deliver a range of “critical projects”.
A major announcement was the granting of nearly $15m to the town council (itself contributing $5m) for the construction of a new public library, in turn converting the existing building at the Civic Centre to become the base for Tourism Central Australia (TCA) and Visitor Information Centre costing $4.8m.
This decision, on the face of it, makes good sense.
TCA Chief Executive Officer, Danial Rochford, is quoted as being delighted, although quite recently TCA proposed the visitors centre should be at the base of Anzac Hill, next to Hungry Jack’s, and on the site some years ago of the Shell franchise.
Most locals and tourists would be likely to agree: That location is on the Stuart Highway and visitors seeking information would not have to cross a busy road from where they are parking.
Mr Rochford now states the new location would alleviate the major problem of lack of parking at the current site, and place it in close proximity to the Greyhound bus parking bays across the road in Gregory Terrace (for which TCA is the exclusive agent in Alice Springs) and to the caravan and bus park on the river side of Leichhardt Terrace directly opposite TCA’s imminent new home.
What’s missing from all the hoopla over this great decision is that the TCA is moving back next door to where it was once located (as the Central Australian Tourism Industry Association) in a building converted for that purpose in Gregory Terrace just over a quarter century ago.
(The ownership of the former Visitor Information Centre was simultaneously transferred from the NT Government to the town council last month, too).
Jalistan House, new visitor centre and TCA office, August 2013.
Not only that, but it’s in the same general vicinity for a Visitor Centre recommended by the landmark Tourism Plan for Central Australia study (the “HKF Report”) published in 1969.
All of this maintains the peculiar fly-in-a-bottle shifts of tourism bureau and visitor centre locations in Alice Springs since the 1960s, especially in the vicinity of the Parsons Street and Todd Mall/street intersection in the CBD.
This history was outlined in my article published in 2013, marking the occasion of the TCA’s new base in Jalistan House on the corner of Todd Mall and Parsons Street.
In keeping with this pattern, Tourism NT (a Division of the Department of Tourism and Hospitality) is located diagonally opposite on the upper level of Alice Plaza, directly above where a shop front for the NT Government Tourist Bureau was opened in the brand-new plaza in 1987!
It’s worth looking at the original recommendation for a Visitor Centre on Colacag Park (now the Civic Centre) in the HKF Report of 1969.
The report states: “Alice Springs is the logical location for a major visitor centre facility because of its position as both the destination point for visitors from afar and the departure point for travel to places of interest in The Centre.
“The Visitor Centre should provide all the visitors’ information needs and will be the starting point for a vacation in The Centre and such a facility will become a destination area in itself. The Visitor Centre will contain the Northern Territory Tourist Bureau, an outback museum, theatre, art and craft gallery, library, amphitheatre, landscaped grounds, ample parking and public toilets.
“The key to the success of the Visitor Centre will be its information and interpretive functions – the Tourist Bureau and the Outback Museum.
“The Tourist Bureau will supply travel information and the museum will provide the visitor an opportunity to develop an understanding of The Centre and its people.
“The Visitor Centre, especially the Tourist Bureau, museum and satellite information centres, should have a multi-lingual capability. The appeal of this area is worldwide and provision for the non-English speaking visitor must be made.” (Visitor Plan for Alice, HKF Report, 1969).
The accompanying photo depicted the then empty corner of Colacag Park at the intersection of Todd Street and Gregory Terrace – this was a decade before the construction of the Alice Springs Town Council complex.
This corner is now the Gathering Garden, opened in 2009 – some 40 years later – commemorating the varied history of today’s Civic Centre block.
Two date palms are prominent in the middle of Colacag Park – they’re still there, over twice as high, in the lawns of the Civic Centre.
They were planted in 1916 by Walter Smith (the “Man from Arltunga”, whose biography was published by the late Dick Kimber in 1986) in the extensive gardens of Afghan cameleer Charlie Sadadeen – the last surviving remnant of the site’s early settled history.
Also visible to the photo’s left edge is a small building, at the time just over a decade old, which was officially opened by the Minister for Territories, Paul Hasluck MP, in 1958.
This was officially the “Queen Elizabeth II Memorial Welfare Centre”, more commonly called the Infant Welfare Clinic: “It will be recalled that on the occasion of the Royal visit, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, expressed a wish that any memento of the visit should take the form of a fund to be devoted to the welfare of the mothers and children of Australia [this was the Queen’s visit to Australia in 1954].
“From funds raised by a local committee from Alice Springs, together with a contribution by the Commonwealth Government, the Memorial Welfare Centre building was completed and the Minister has consented to unveil a plaque commemorating the occasion at a ceremony which will take place at 8pm, on April 23, 1958” (Centralian Advocate, 18/04/58).
Jalistan House, the new TCA office in June 2013 during north Todd St reconstruction – one of the many.
The official opening occurred in the middle of a political crisis, as every elected member of the NT Legislative Council had resigned en masse in protest at the lack of constitutional development of the NT.
The revolt was led by the Member for Alice Springs, Neil Hargrave, who along with other prominent local leaders staged a noisy protest meeting of some 200 residents on that corner when Hasluck was doing the honours for the new clinic.
Now long forgotten, this episode prompted significant reforms in the early 1960s – and opened the way for Bernie Kilgariff’s long political career.
The Infant Welfare Clinic operated for many years (I was one of its clients!) but was eventually superseded by other services and closed.
In the mid 1990s, the Central Australian Tourism Industry Association was looking for new digs and set its sights on the old clinic in Gregory Terrace.
Prominent member Libby Prell explained the process in a letter to the editor: “CATIA approached the Minister for Lands in November 1995, expressing an interest in the vacant building as a possible Visitor Information Centre and CATIA office.
“A full submission was subsequently prepared. In late 1996, an offer was made of a Crown Lease on the block”.
In an extraordinary echo of the infant clinic’s original funding, Libby Prell’s letter continued: “CATIA is self-funding $260,000 on the building alterations and extensions, with an additional $260,000 being a Federal Tourism Regional Development Grant. A total of $520,000 will be spent on the building.
“Tangentyere Design has created a building which will be endemic to Central Australia, which is contemporary and inspirational and has integrity and not be ostentatious.
“To that end the building will be colour-rendered in its entirety, will have a feature ’tilting’ sandstone wall on the west and north aspects.
“Landscaping is an integral part of the project. CATIA and Tangentyere Design have always had a focus that the building is a public utility and seen to be part of the family of Town Council buildings” (Centralian Advocate, 4/11/97).
Construction work had already commenced in September 1997: “Located in front of the Town Council chambers on Gregory Terrace, the building was designed by Tangentyere Design and is being built by Probuild.
Public library, Gregory Tce view, August 2013.
“The NT Government has leased the land and buildings to Central Australian Tourism on a peppercorn lease for up to 20 years” (Centralian Advocate, 12/09/97).
Simultaneously, the town council was considering new plans to its major upgrading of Leichhardt Terrace already underway north of Gregory Terrace: “The NT Government has agreed to give an extra $80,000 toward the plan to include the section of Leichhardt Terrace between Gregory and Stott Terraces in the reconstruction. If adopted, it will take the bill of the total Leichhardt Terrace reconstruction to $800,000.
“The plan allows for a passenger drop-off zone for up to five buses next to the council grounds [Gregory Terrace].
“Across the road next to the Todd River, there is space for coach parking … it is hoped this will take the clutter of traffic, currently a daily occurrence in Gregory Terrace, around the corner into Leichhardt Terrace where there is more space.
“And it would not remove tourists from the Todd Mall retail area or the new CATIA building on Gregory Terrace.
“Council’s Director of Planning, Eugene Barry, said all relevant NT Government Departments on the Urban Beautification Steering Committee had agreed to the proposition” (Centralian Advocate, 14/11/97).
Thus the scene was set during 1998 – the new CATIA Visitor Information Centre and tour bus parking bays in Gregory Terrace, and coach and caravan parking across Leichhardt Terrace opposite the public library.
Yet, well within the 20-year period of a peppercorn rent for the reconstructed building in Gregory Terrace, Tourism Central Australia abandoned the lease in favour of moving into Jalistan House in 2013.
This building, previously long occupied by Australian Airlines and QANTAS, had been empty for several years (a restaurant briefly operated there).
Since 2013, the previous custom-rebuilt Visitor Information Centre in Gregory Terrace (at left) has in turn languished as an empty building, often targeted by vandals.
The TCA’s move to Jalistan House coincided with another major town council road building project, this time the re-opening of the north end of Todd Mall to traffic and reconstruction of part of Parsons Street in 2012-13, costing $5m, in a vain attempt to revitalise the north end of the town centre.
The TCA clearly shot itself in the foot with this move – not only paying rent in new premises several years earlier than it needed to but also isolated from easy access to vehicular traffic.
So now, over a decade later, a bit of common sense has prevailed with the TCA, town council and the NT Government returning back to the future with the imminent relocation of the Tourism Information Centre returning to the vicinity of where it was first proposed to go 56 years ago.
PHOTO at top: Colacag Park, today’s Civic Centre site, at the intersection of Todd Street and Gregory Terrace, in 1969. That was a decade before the construction of the Alice Springs Town Council complex on that site. This corner is now the Gathering Garden, opened in 2009.
I am writing from the visitor’s centre at Mclaren Vale. In front of me I see a green picnic area and playground.
I am drinking coffee from a small cafe to my right. On my left is a wonderful display of produce from the district, plus rows of information pamphlets.
On my far right I see a communal meeting area, and when I visited the toilet area it was wonderful. I recall some time ago a segment on Australia all over, a survey of travellers expectations of a visitors centre. The unanimous response was “nice toilets”. Ours has none!.
As I left, I saw three busloads of visitors entering within a 20 m walk and several large vans, all parked within 40 m of the entrance. Their visitors centre was deliberately planned around vehicle parking and has about five acres of nicely landscaped parking area within a 100 m or so of the entry.
Then I reflected on ours, where visitors have to walk a couple of hundred metres through the mall to get to the info they want in the hope that they will buy something on the way through. If the commercial fast food outlets took that line and expected their clientele to walk that distance for their product they would go broke. They base their location on traffic flows.
That’s what we should be doing. To put a tourism office where the old bulk fuel deposit was is akin to advertising film posters on the far side of the cinema entrance when patrons have to go past to view the product.
There was also publicity on national radio this week claiming that the arts industry in this country was worth more than the chicken industry. If that is so, why is the red hot arts centre situated opposite a car repair facility? (Kmart) and not more in pubic view? It’s almost like its a shame job and not in keeping with our tourist image.
Most of our visitors come from the South – airport, Yulara etc and by road. The obvious location for visitor exposure is at the Transport Hall of Fame, a national icon and with the RSL thrown is its such an obvious location but ignored. All that is needed is an eye catching icon – a big something, banana etc as in other places. I think an Indigenous family, an explorer, and a cameleer with camel, and of course, Albert Namatjira, all of whom have contributed to who we are would be the attention grabber we need. And like Winton with its Waltzing Matilda theme, let’s throw in Ted Egan’s “A town like Alice” and “Going back to Alice on the Ghan” as theme music.
There is plenty of parking at the Hall of Fame and a continuously running electric shuttle to the CBD as in Winton might alleviate some of our traffic congestion problems with the ever increasing problem of large vans. This should be a part of a new tourism precinct South of the gap and centred on the Cultural Centre as the TOs want, in conjunction with Yirara and DK and used as a promotional / training centre for Indigenous heritage and run in part by the students at Yirara.
Having just spent time south of Adelaide and witnessed the constant sound proofing and display of housing roof tops along the freeway, it’s not a pretty site – a larger scale of Kilgariff and I don’t think visitors come here so see our housing developments.
We could have hard the likes of the Aldinga eco village, or Chritsies chase in the Adelaide CBD or Yakundandra in Victoria as precedents to go on. And make us unique. I would like to see both sides of the southern entrance to town filled with bush tucker plants and maintained by the correctional services people, who do such a great job elsewhere and promoted as such in a very positive way. It’s shameful that a friend had to reach out to a shop in Melbourne to get bush tucker.
The current situation reminds me of the P. B. Shelley poem “Ozemandius” which concludes with the lines: “My name is Ozemandius, King of Kings. Look upon my works ye mighty and despair” and then “Nothing beside remains”.
I think previous planners in the Top End must have employed Ozemandius as a consultant.