Cobar Shire Council has nearly $3.5 million worth of Federal Government grant funding to establish a structured roadmap for the town’s CBD and they are working hard to make sure they get it right.
Cobar was one of four CBD projects awarded funding last year as part of the government’s regional Precincts and Partnership Program (rPPP), which provides investment to transform regional, rural and remote places.
And to help them get everything right, Council has contracted experienced street rehabilitation project manager, Anna Wyllie, along with consultants to create spaces that serve people and purpose.
The Cobar Weekly sat down with Anna and Council’s general manager Peter Vlatko and project coordinator Carly Hunter on Monday to get an update on the Grand Precinct Project.
“There’s approximately $3.5 million in the budget.
“The thing we need to be really clear with the public about is this is not for capital, this is just design, so that we’re shovel ready for grants,” Anna explained.
There are five project objectives—the main street, the Grand Hotel, the library, the Town Hall and the Brennan Centre.
“We’re watching the budget, we’re thinking about buildability, we’re thinking about useability and thinking about maintenance,” Anna said.
“We’ve just been to tender for the Brennan Centre and there’s two components to this project that we’re looking at there.”
Anna explained one is the Linsley Street Masterplan, and the other component is the design of four duplexes (eight units) on the vacant block on the corner of Broomfield and Linsley streets.
With regards to the library, Anna said their consultants will create a masterplan, that will offer both short and long-term plans.
“I think it is a really exciting project because libraries should be the heart in regional communities,” she said.
“Libraries can be so cool, really cool.”
Anna said if you can activate the library well, that can create a flow-on effect of people using the cafes and a number of other services in the CBD.
Carly said there’s been lots of masterplans for the main street over the years, and they’ll be taking the best ideas from each of them and incorporating them into the new delivery plan for the main street.
“We need to do it properly because in a lot of peoples’ minds, the main street upgrades weren’t that long ago—it was 20 years but it doesn’t seem that long ago,” Carly said.
Plans will include more shade and have more of a pedestrian focus.
Also as part of the whole design process, Council will be engaging a structural engineer to get a proper costing to bring the Town Hall back to compliance.
A structural engineer is also looking at what’s involved in making the Grand Hotel building compliant.
Council will also be conducting an economic feasibility assessment to look at what sort of income streams might be gained from the building.
Anna said a challenge of the project is working out what the community needs which isn’t already catered for elsewhere.
“A duplication of services is something that we want to try to avoid,” she said.
After conducting a gap analysis, the team will look at all the projects, prioritise them and start putting together costings and then go looking for grants for construction.
“This is a really exciting project for Council to ensure that we have shovel ready projects to take advantage of grant opportunities as they become available,” Peter said.
