Katoomba Charrette Outcomes Report - Blue Mountains City Council

Katoomba Charrette Report & Town Centre Strategy
Now that the earlier Gateway proposal for a stand-alone supermarket and shopping centre has
been withdrawn, there is a heightened opportunity to develop this key site (or independent
parcels) in a way that truly benefits the Town Centre, as illustrated by the Charrette design.
Depending on whether the different parcels within the site are developed together or
separately, and depending on the creativity and judgement of the developers and their
architects, other developments of and uses for the Gateway site may eventuate, which would
also need to comply with its Project Design Brief.
Action 9.5 A- Find a new owner for this consolidated site, or implement development with the
several existing owners, as per the Project Design Brief.
Action 9.5 B - BMCC should work with existing owner to protect the existing private
accessway as a future public street, acquire it and construct improvements including
footpath/s.
9.6 Renaissance Centre
The Renaissance Centre is a very large historic multi-storey building previously used as a private
school, with a mix of large halls, small classrooms and a commercial kitchen. It is in good condition,
empty and for lease (and possibly for sale), with great potential to benefit itself and the Town Centre,
on whose northern extremity it sits.
9.6.1 Site and Its Influences
The spectacular Renaissance Centre is located prominently on Civic Place, which was the
original highway route into the Blue Mountains, and was bypassed by the new Great Western
Highway in the 1980’s. The site is quite large and contains undeveloped land to the north of
the main building complex, with attractive trees and an elevated position commanding
excellent views in most directions.
The property may not yet have found new user/s, because it is so vast a property, that a big
enough single user may have been hard to find. It seemed to the Charrette Team that the
approach to its re-use may have been limiting its success thus far. During the Charrette, the
following uses and development approaches emerged for the Renaissance Centre, which could
happen individually or in combination:
The Renaissance Centre management might offer the facility for lease to different
complementary users, rather than to one single hard-to-find tenant (perhaps with
leasehold residential accommodation upstairs);
Universities might be approached with the Renaissance Centre as a Blue Mountains-specific
extension to their teaching agendas, either by a secondary campus and/or by interactive
video teaching;
The current TAFE facility on Parke Street might either expand and/or relocate itself to the
Renaissance Centre, with an increased focus on the Arts, which could free up all or part of
the existing TAFE site for new mixed uses including a concentration of residential close-in
to the Town Centre.
Action 9.6 - Facilitate attraction of new uses for the Renaissance Centre, which are
complementary to the Town Centre.
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