New plan for Hobart cultural precinct with Mona links
As Hobart’s Dark Mofo arts festival moves into full swing, Melbourne-based developer Riverlee is looking to the next stage of its collaboration with the Museum of Old and New Art and its founder David Walsh.
The festival kicked off last week in a site featuring a green neon-lit overhead structure “In the Hanging Garden”, with the redevelopment of the historic Odeon Theatre as a live music venue along with the bars, restaurants, a nightclub and pop-up kitchens featuring Tasmanian produce.
Riverlee director David Lee says while the family company, founded by Clement Lee, has invested in commercial property in Hobart since the early 2000s, its 6800sqm site that includes the Odeon Theatre is its first project in the state, and sprang from an unexpected partnership with Mona and its offshoot DarkLab.
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DarkLab will continue to operate the precinct once the three-week festival finishes.
Only a small portion of the site has been developed with the mixed-use project to eventually include residential, co-working space, a hotel and retail, Lee says.
Architect Fender Katsalidis, which has been working with Mona, designed the $5 million cultural and entertainment precinct.
“We’ve been a major investor in Tasmania since 2000, strategically and patiently acquiring the host of sites over 11 transactions across a 14-year-period; never did we imagine that all of this would eventually lead to an amazing and unique partnership with Mona and DarkLab,” Lee says.
“Very early in the piece, it was David Walsh who told us that culture cannot be designed or built. He said culture is created by people. We can’t control it. So rather than design a master plan, he suggested we open up the site, and invite other businesses in, letting them create their own culture.”
The concept for the “Cathedral”, a covered street food/fresh local produce market on the site sprang from a meeting with DarkLab director Leigh Carmichael.
“Leigh Carmichael dreamt it up, sketched it on a notebook and three weeks later we had plans with the architect, three months later we had permits and built it,” Lee says.
DarkLab director Leigh Carmichael says the Odeon Theatre was originally earmarked for apartments, but after meeting with Riverlee, the two decided to create multi-venue live music precinct.
“The area owned by Riverlee already included the Odeon Theatre and the Tatts Hotel and by adding some food vendors, a pop up market and an outdoor event space, we subconsciously created a precinct right in the heart of Hobart,” Carmichael says.
This article originally appeared on www.theaustralian.com.au/property.
