<strong>Katoomba</strong> <strong>Charrette</strong> <strong>Report</strong> & Town Centre Strategy Aerial Perspective Sketch of Northeast Corner of the Cultural/Visitors Centre Sketch Of Lekkus Contemporary Arts Gallery With Cultural/Visitors Centre to the right and the south facade of the Carrington Hotel to the left 86
<strong>Katoomba</strong> <strong>Charrette</strong> <strong>Report</strong> & Town Centre Strategy Public Courtyard Between Cultural/Visitors Centre and the Carrington The space between the Centre and the Carrington, comprised of Froma Lane and the Carrington’s present car park, would hopefully become a sunny, sheltered high quality outdoor urban space, as illustrated in the sketch above. While vehicular traffic should definitely still pass through this space in order to connect at least with College Lane (if not into the Carrington Lawn), this urban space should be devoted primarily to gathering rather than car parking. The present new car park for the Carrington would not contribute, in its present state, to such a high quality urban space. In order to reduce the amount of car parking in that area, either other spaces would need to be found on the Carrington property, or else perhaps an arrangement could be made with the Cultural/Visitors Centre for some limited but dedicated Carrington car parking, or perhaps the parking requirement might be reduced. Furthermore, the present car park drains to the west, which has forced the eastern end to be raised with a retaining wall at its southeast corner. This condition is not conducive to the priority of pedestrian access from the proposed Cultural/Visitors Centre out to the Carrington Lawn and to <strong>Katoomba</strong> Street, or to <strong>Katoomba</strong> Street via improvements to the Clarendon shops property to the south of the Carrington’s lawn. Hopefully these difficulties can be resolved through cooperation between the Carrington, the Clarendon shops ownership (John Lekkus), BMCC and the Cultural/Visitors Centre proponents. Additional Cultural Facilities Nearby as Part of the Experience Along with the Carrington across Froma Lane, a private Contemporary Art Gallery is proposed for a new building behind the Clarendon Shops to the east, on John Lekkus’ property (see Subsection 10.3). Hopefully visitors and locals alike would be drawn further east to <strong>Katoomba</strong> Street and the Savoy Performing Arts Centre, and to the west across Parke Street to the New TAFE Arts Centre (see Section 10.5). Need for Large Ca Parking Capacity and Tourist Coach Drop-off and Parking As explained in Section 8.2.3 on car parking, the <strong>Charrette</strong> recognised that a large visitor parking capacity will be needed to optimise the public transport linkage between the Town Centre and Echo Point, by means of inducing cars and coaches to stop in the Town Centre first, and then for visitors to take the bus to Echo Point and back (or walk). The <strong>Charrette</strong> estimated that about 300 spaces might be needed for this purpose. Any additional complementary uses in the Cultural/Visitors Centre, as mentioned above, would also need some additional parking capacity on the site. However, peak demands for the various uses will hopefully not all coincide, so that the shared parking capacity can serve respective parking demands at different times, thereby requiring fewer total spaces. The Old TAFE site, especially if assembled with properties to its south, was big enough potentially for a larger parking structure, associated with the Visitors Centre, along with other users of the parking capacity. The RTA Building just south of the Old TAFE property is owned by the State, and would hopefully become part of this project, as well. When approached by the <strong>Charrette</strong> Team, Jane Young, owner of the building housing Civic Video and Retrovision to the south of the RTA Building, expressed verbal willingness in principle to consider a joint venture or sale of the property, that would effectively join these properties to enable a larger development (see indicative design option C below). The combined sites generally slope enough for access to underground parking without expensive and space-hungry internal ramps. 87
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