From Eyesore To Icon?

By Dan Hutton on June 23, 2012 in News

They say you can’t polish a turd, and you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone bar the biggest Harry Seidler fan or possibly the tenants privy to the phenomenal views that would describe the grotesque block of flats at the back of Tamarama gully any other way.

While it wouldn’t be hard to find locals who would love to see the building razed to the ground, the reality is that with 78 owners part of the body corporate, some of whom have paid in the vicinity of 1 million dollars for their concrete box, it isn’t going to happen.

After fifty years in existence, Glenview Court at 20 Illawong Avenue, Tamarama is literally falling to pieces. Concrete cancer has left numerous sections of the building in need of urgent repair and recently led to the issue of a Fire Safety Order by Waverley Council. The building’s aesthetic is hardly appealing at the best of times but unless some work is carried out soon it will continue to get much worse.

The work required to meet the terms of the Fire Safety Order has been estimated to cost multiple millions of dollars, even without significant upgrades to the aesthetic of the present day building.

As such, the body corporate, led by Executive Chairman Christine Smetsers, unanimously agreed and positively voted to lodge DA plans recently through architects Tobias Patrners to completely upgrade the building, adding two penthouse apartments on to a yet to be constructed seventh floor, the sale of which will help cover the costs of the upgrade, as well as implementing underground car parking, building balconies for every unit and undertaking a significant landscaping effort in the belief that it will turn what is now an eyesore into an Eastern Suburbs icon, and add another fifty years of life to the building.

Smetsers stressed that it is “the owners corporation not developers who are working together to make significant improvements to the building”.

“It is largely an exercise to cut down the cost of the Fire Order, but it is also an opportunity to improve the aesthetic of the building,” she said.

“We have a diverse range of owners some have been in the building since it was built. Without these improvements they will probably be forced to sell up and move out. We have very strong support to create something wonderful.”

“We are looking at greening the building, fully landscaping the existing carpark and making it a beautiful space that is worthy of the landscape it is situated in.”

When asked if the development was a profit making exercise, Smetsers was frank in her rebuttle.

“Far from it,” she said. “We won’t come out ahead. We were hoping to come out cost neutral but it’s not going to happen.”

While Nick Tobias of Tobias Partners describes the development as an “opportunity for improvement not only for the occupants of the 80 apartments in the building itself, but also for the local community”, it is yet to be seen if the Tamarama locals will share the same enthusiasm.

Development is rarely smiled upon in the Eastern Suburbs and the increased height of the building that this particular project will bring is bound to raise the ire of some local residents.

On a positive note, surely this building can’t look any worse, but if the DA does get approved, Mr Tobias is going to need a big can of Mr Sheen to prove the punters wrong and give this steaming pile the polish it requires.