Expanding Adelaide Botanic Garden shrugs off development pressures

In an age when urban botanic gardens around the world are struggling to maintain their footprints in the face of development pressures, Adelaide Botanic Garden is about to grow to its largest size in its 180-year history.

With the former Royal Adelaide Hospital on city’s North Terrace to be decommissioned, the Adelaide Botanic Garden is to be given 2 hectares of adjoining land – extending its 29 hectares. With the garden adjoining the 23 hectare Botanic Park, the combined open space will present as 52 hectare green belt that between the Adelaide CBD and the River Torrens.

Adelaide Botanic Garden Director Dr Lucy Sutherland said the gifting of additional land was rare in built up urban areas because of development pressure on city spaces.

Citing several examples where city botanic gardens had to give up land to make way for infrastructure developments, including in Sydney and Brisbane, Dr Sutherland stated “with Adelaide Botanic Garden this is incredibly rare.

“Even when the hospital land was originally taken for the greater good of the hospital in the 1960s, other land was given to the botanic garden at that time to compensate.

“The unusual thing about the Adelaide Botanic Garden is that with everything happening and the city developing, it’s never actually reduced in size.”

The land, about the size of two large sports fields, adjoins the southwest corner of the existing garden, has some North Terrace road frontage and currently houses the soon-to-be-demolished East Wing building of the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

The hospital closed in September, coinciding with the opening of the $2.3 billion new Royal Adelaide Hospital about 2 kilometres west along North Terrace to the west.

Dr Sutherland said the Adelaide Botanic Garden hoped to take control of the land within two years, depending on what contamination threats were uncovered during demolition.

However, she said the state of the land was unlikely to impact on the institution’s ability to grow a garden on it.

She explained “all of that will be very carefully looked at and any new soil being brought in will have to adhere to certain specifications.

“People will be picnicking on that land so it will undergo scientific investigation to make sure that soil is going to work for us.”

A landscape architect will be engaged by the South Australian Government to work with the botanic garden on designing the area.

The Botanic Gardens of South Australia has also recently released its Strategic Plan for 2017-22.

Dr Sutherland said the two plans would be intrinsically linked to ensure the best outcome, adding that the gifted land will provide an opportunity to open up the garden more to North Terrace to make a greater entry statement and would allow more evening activities.

She continued “we have really lovely heritage gates on North Terrace but they are very modest, not grand ... (so) we want to create a new sense of entry and arrival.

“North Terrace is a very busy boulevard so when people come into the gardens we want them to have the feeling of entering an oasis.

“The (South Australian) Government has made it very clear that they want to see that as an integrated zone and it will really open up the gardens to North Terrace and people will be able to visually see it much earlier and enter it more easily.”

The Adelaide Botanic Garden welcomed 1.14 million visitors last year, making it one of the city’s best-attended attractions.

Dr Sutherland said the expansion and the opening of the nearby Botanic High School in 2019 would put the garden in the spotlight and help build on the already strong links with other North Terrace institutions such as the Art Gallery of South Australia and the State Library of South Australia.

She concluded “we’ll be working with the high school to ensure that the garden can become a place of learning for them and a place they can easily access.

“Our philosophy is of lifelong learning and engagement so the opportunity to capture people in their teens is amazing.

Sometimes people come into the garden for relaxation and recreations but they are not always aware there is a whole bunch of science going on – we’re cracking the code on how to germinate South Australian flora so we can get threatened species back out into the environment.

“That institutional work we do is not always overt and being in the spotlight again really provides us with an opportunity to start talking about our work as an institution.”

Laid out by Colonel William Light in 1836, Adelaide is famous for its green spaces. The city is surrounded by 930 hectares of parklands, the largest urban park system in Australia.

The South Australian Government has recently scrapped a $1 billion plan for a private consortium to redevelop the old Royal Adelaide Hospital, announcing it will take full control of the centrally located, seven-hectare site.

South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill said that while the Government had been in exclusive negotiations with the preferred proponent, the final offer was rejected because it did not offer the best value for taxpayers.

He explained “the old Royal Adelaide Hospital site is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in the heart of one of the world’s most liveable cities, so it’s critical that the redevelopment delivers a first class result for all South Australians.

“We don’t want to see this vital piece of our city fenced off for years to come and left to the market to dictate what happens and when. By maintaining control over the old Royal Adelaide Hospital site we will ensure that the interests of South Australians are paramount rather than the interests of private developers.”

The development will include student accommodation, aged care living and short term accommodation along with a 5-star hotel and a new art gallery, the Adelaide Contemporary gallery, and will soon launch an international search for a design team to lead the gallery project.

Under the new development model, full control over each stage of the project will remain in public hands.

From 22nd to 25th October, Adelaide will be hosting the 8th Biennial Botanic Gardens of Australia and New Zealand Congress at the National Wine Centre, which adjoins the Adelaide Botanic Garden.

Click here for more information on the Congress in the Australasian Leisure Management Calendar. 

Images (from top): The Adelaide Botanic Garden's Palm House; Conservatory; its Strategic Plan for 2017/22 and plans for is expanded lake.

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5th November 2016 - OLD ROYAL ADELAIDE HOSPITAL REDEVELOPMENT TO INCLUDE CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERY

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30th September 2016 - ADELAIDE FESTIVAL CENTRE DESIGNS RELEASED AHEAD OF $900 MILLION PLAZA PRECINCT REDEVELOPMENT

30th June 2016 - HELPMANN AWARDS TO HONOUR MICHAEL LYNCH 

17th March 2013 - ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA TRIPLES RETURN ON INVESTMENT 

15th June 2010 - MITZEVICH APPOINTED ART GALLERY SA’S YOUNGEST DIRECTOR 

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