The Hurstville City Centre is home to over 7000 residents and sees a movement of over 40,000 people through Hurstville Station each day (Transport for NSW Opal data, 2018). As a centre with 94% high density housing, the Hurstville City Centre serves as an extension of families’ living rooms and is their backyard so the provision of quality open space is crucial for residents as well as visitors.  It is also great for business.

Accessible, green, innovative and multipurpose open space is key to the liveability of our city. The deficiency of quality open space in Hurstville is highlighted in a number of Georges River Council’s strategic documents. The available space to meet this shortfall is very limited. Therefore, Council needs to investigate innovative ways to provide additional open space. This will enable Hurstville to become a destination that attracts and retains visitors, which will in turn boost the local economy.

Georges River Council’s Hurstville Revitalisation Project will deliver quality green open space, increased greenery and innovative public domain improvements in the city. The four areas of focus are the Palm Court car park conversion into green open space, the MacMahon Street courtyard, Memorial Square and Forest Road.
 

Areas of focus

Council has received $4.75 million through the NSW Department of Planning and Environment’s Public Spaces Legacy Program. This funding will be utilised to deliver the transformation of Memorial Square and MacMahon Courtyard.

The MacMahon Street courtyard will see the inclusion of public art, improved pedestrian access to the site, additional plantings, shade structures and seating. 

The Memorial Square designs will see the site improved  for the community from the following interventions:

• Greening - new tree plantings and garden beds installed. This will aims to reduce the urban heat island effect in the centre and also provide areas of shade and respite in the city
• Quality and useable public space, accessible for people of all abilities
• Removing ”pockets” on the site that currently see undesirable behaviour and make the area unappealing.
• Increase social cohesion and passive recreation opportunities
• Enhance the significance of the War Memorial located on the site
• Provide economic benefit by creating more attractive places where people linger.

Benefits of the project

Improvement of public amenity will encourage more people to visit this part of Hurstville and stay longer, day and night.
Local and international research has shown that de-emphasising car parking and improvements to public spaces within town centres can boost commercial trading by up to 40 per cent through an increase in visitor numbers.
People who arrive on foot generally visit an area more often than those who arrive via car and will spend up to six-times more in the centre than people arriving by car.

In one example, converting an underused parking lot into a public park on Pearl Street (Brooklyn, US) increased nearby retail sales volumes by 172%.

Changes in consumer expenditure and behaviours, driven in part by the impact of COVID-19, pose a number of challenges to many businesses in town centres.

Great public spaces can breathe fresh life into the Hurstville City Centre. If we want to attract more visitors spending their money in local businesses, we need to make open public spaces a priority.

View the concept designs for the four areas of focus here and the concept design for Treacy Street here. 

MacMahon Street Courtyard - concept design 

Palm Court - design principles 

Memorial Square - concept design 
 

Forest Road - concept design 

For further project information, please contact our Senior Project Officer via mail@georgesriver.nsw.gov.au.