• Site description
• Site history
  • Civic Place 1903 - 2003
  • Civic Place 2003 onwards
  • Site Vision
• Strategies & policies

Civic Place 2003 onwards

Almost the whole of the city block fronting Victoria Avenue Chatswood NSW, now known as Civic Place, has been in public ownership for many decades. It is possibly the most important public site owned by Willoughby City Council and certainly one of the most valuable. The many opportunities it offers to the local and regional resident, visitor and business communities has demanded comprehensive, intelligent and long term planning for its redevelopment. The location of the site in the centre of the Chatswood CBD, and its proximity to public transport, parking, retail and commercial facilities, together with the former Civic Centre and Library, supported patronage from a catchment of almost 800,000 people across the northern Sydney metropolitan area.

The existing Civic Place site currently offers facilities and services of a size and quality that have not, and cannot, be provided by smaller neighbouring Councils. In considering the redevelopment of this site, although only a local government authority, Willoughby City Council (‘Council’) needs to provide facilities to serve the north shore region. To do otherwise, and cater for only local residents, would be to ignore the role of Chatswood and Willoughby City, as a regional centre, within metropolitan Sydney.

From the mid 1990s it became clear that Council needed to create a centrepiece – a heart and soul for the CBD which would meet the future growth for library services, open space and cultural/community facilities. At that time, as many non-residents used the central Library and the Civic Centre, as did residents – a situation that continues today. Council also needed to address the limitations of ageing, dysfunctional and inaccessible public facilities on the Civic Place site, and how those facilities were to meet the community’s needs within a CBD experiencing unprecedented levels of development and commercial investment.

It was clear that the ‘do nothing’ option, was not a responsible option. Failure to provide accessible public facilities and safe public open space, at least to a standard that met current community needs would effectively deny this important sub-regional centre the opportunity to flourish as a ‘complete’ city. In the absence of suitable facilities, the opportunity for local gathering, community celebrations, community learning and the performing arts would fade away. The social benefits and identity generated by the city’s gathering place would no longer be enjoyed. CBD businesses would not benefit economically from the support that a major community and cultural centre could bring to the city.