Katoomba Charrette Outcomes Report - Blue Mountains City Council

Katoomba Charrette Report & Town Centre Strategy
New ‘Cyber Cafe’ overlooks Vestpocket Park and Barrel-Vaulted Atrium Below
Across the skylit atrium from the Library, a new ‘Cyber Cafe’ is proposed (see plan above).
This ‘New Age’ cafe would offer normal fare, complemented with Internet computer terminals,
where locals and visitors can pay to access the Net or their email address to send and receive
mail. Internet cafes have been sprouting up across the world in town centres, especially ones
frequented by tourists. This Internet system could also serve as a ‘satellite’ video-interactive
learning facility in conjunction with a university or other teaching establishment.
The cafe overlooks the double height barrel-vaulted atrium to the south, and the new public
vestpocket park to the north, onto which its tables should spill out in good weather.
The cafe is relatively small, but toilet new facilities are nearby, shown at the stairs up to
College Lane, just to the west of the relocated community hall space. This space, retained at
its present size, is moved south the distance of the new passageway that directly links College
Lane to Katoomba Street.
Indoor Playground
In the lower level on the south side is located a small playground for young children, right next
to the existing toilets.
Upgrade the Toilets
Feed-back from stakeholders subsequent to the Charrette has urged improvement of toilets in
the Civic Centre to include infant changing facilities. If the indoor playground is constructed
as proposed, the toilets next to it would be the likely candidates for such upgrades. In
addition new toilets are provided upstairs.
Action 10.6 - Construct the Civic Centre Remodel as per the above Project Design Brief.
10.7 Department Of Housing Site • Design and New Street Link From
Parke to Cascade Streets
As explained above in Section 8.3, east-west access to and from the Town Centre is quite difficult,
especially for pedestrians. One key reason is the 600+ metre length of the street block of Parke and
Cascade Streets between Waratah Street and Bathurst Road. A key opportunity to make a vehicular
and pedestrian link through this very long block was identified during the Charrette on a vacant lot
owned by the Ministry for Housing. The design below was proposed, but it was subsequently found
that the MoH was too far along in the development of their then vacant lot to enable changes to be
made. Thus the design below is only indicative of how possibly other adjoining lots from Cascade to
Parke Street can be combined and designed to accommodate both a through street and shallow
development of medium density lots on the south side, so that they gain sunshine and access along
that new street link.
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