For many, the dilapidated office blocks - conceived in an era when the future of the area seemed very different than it does today - have come to symbolise a greater malaise facing the town centre, a slow decline exacerbated by departing government agencies, aging and empty buildings and an unrealised vision.

"We had a few really great years," says Lorena Skipper, who with husband Luke opened a branch of chocolatier San Churros on Bradley Street a few blocks away from the towers, around four years ago. Since that time the pair has witnessed a stagnation.

"Business is hard in that town centre, and certainly talking to a number of other traders who we've sort of become friends with, it's not a dissimilar story, that times are a little bit tough."

With debate raging about the future for Woden, many residents and business owners like Ms Skipper are hopeful the latest plans could provide a boost. Developers are working on grand plans that promise hope to breathe new life into the area. New apartments are springing up, vacant shops in the Westfield mall are filling, and the government is talking up its commitment to send stage two of light rail to Woden.

There's even a plan to turn the much maligned Albermarle and Alexander buildings into hundreds of flash apartments, with a pub, brewery and rock-climbing centre planned to take advantage of the larger-than-average basements.

One of the loudest voices calling for action to address the town centre's problems is Greens parliamentarian Caroline Le Couteur.

"It was designed in the NCDC [National Capital Development Commission] days, and the idea would be that everyone who worked in Woden would live in Woden, and the idea, if it had continued this way, was reasonably sustainable," she says.

"The NCDC had a lot of money and lot of power, and they actually were trying to build something that they thought was going to work. They weren't trying to do Woden in - they were trying to build a good satellite city."

But now it is subject to a process of urban renewal, Canberra is floundering, she says. For too long, we've been growing outwards, and as the years go on and new town centres open, we learn from past mistakes. Whatever you think about Gungahlin, she says, it has benefited from a more modern approach to town planning.

"Gungahlin has major advantages because it doesn't have a mall, it has a high street," she says.

The ACT Government is in the process of drafting a territory plan variation for Woden - Le Couteur is on the planning committee - and many of the recommendations have less to do with planning, and more to do with the existing community.

"Planning rules by themselves are not going to be enough to solve Woden's problems - we need to actually do some more work and we need to do a lot of work with the private sector, because they own a lot of the key sites and we need to make sure that what they build all meshes together."

Half a century after being founded, some of the area's problems can be traced back to the original plans.

In the 1960s and 70s, when shiny new suburban utopias were springing, fully formed, throughout the capital, Woden was a self-contained patchwork of office buildings and car parks converging on a great big shopping mall. These were to cater to all the eager young families expected to settle down in the surrounding Woden Valley, where the head of the family to walk or drive to the office where he (most likely) would spend the rest of his working life.

But this kind of bunkered-in style of urban design has fallen out of favour in recent years and has been branded by some planners as a failure. Woden has, over the ensuing 50 years, risen and fallen as, in turns: a middling suburban shopping precinct, a necessary sidebar to a grim housing development, a gradually abandoned government office precinct and, more recently, a large site dotted with struggling businesses and empty buildings poised for redevelopment.

A nearly three-year-old Master Plan has yet to be implemented, arguments about the height of buildings regularly erupt, and a shrinking workforce complains of a lack of community services.

Chief executive of Woden Community Service Chris Redmond agrees that urban renewal is a delicate balancing act when it comes to areas like Woden.

"It's this interesting balance between what you draw people into Woden for, and how you keep them engaged here," he says.

"The Westfield's not enough, and the club's aren't enough. What the apartments are doing is they're bringing people in, but they're not keeping them here. So there are concerns around Woden becoming a dormitory suburb because there's not enough for people to do here."

But nothing in a young town like Canberra is ever beyond redemption.

No one knows this better than developer John Hindmarsh. Back in the 1970s, he was involved in the early building process of the infamous housing development Burnie Court. Once conceived as a respectable estate just across from the town centre, Burnie Court quickly developed a reputation as Canberra's most notorious housing ghetto, site of drug deals and overdoses, fires, dumped cars, fights and general unrest. Hindmarsh says Woden's larger decline happened in tandem. And he can say this today with a wry smile, because he's now one of Canberra's leading property developers. After Burnie Court was demolished, his company bought the site in 2005 and, nearly 10 years later, it was reborn as a precinct for retirees and Woden apartment dwellers.

That was four years ago, but Hindmarsh says it marked a turning point for Woden.

"There's been a huge change to Woden, and in spite of the fact that there's been a loss of employment, the expectation that the tram will go there has lifted a lot of people's interest in the place," she says.

His company has a large tract of land on the eastern edge, the Woden Green Precinct, with five sections already developed, and four more in the pipeline. Among them, he's hoping for development approval for two towers, the height of which will be determined by the draft variation to the ACT Territory Plan.

He has long become accustomed to disagreements over height, even in Woden, already the site of Lovett Tower, one of the city's tallest buildings. The Sorell Apartments on the Burnie Court site is a humble 10 storeys, every one of them fought for. Hindmarsh can't see the point.

"If we build long, flat buildings, you can't see anything, particularly four-storey buildings, or even three-storey buildings. It blocks out the horizon," he says.

"With tall, relatively slender buildings, you can look past them and you can see the landscape behind them. But everyone here seems to have a terrible aversion to anything high-rise."

Chief minister Andrew Barr recently added his voice to those calling for a change, railing against the anti-high-rise brigade. His government has recently given the green light on two new high-rise buildings - at 18 and 26 storeys respectively, they will be veritable skyscrapers by Canberra standard - that will go up on the site of the former Medibank building next to the bus interchange. Joint developers Zapari and Geocon plan to build 430 apartments across the two towers with commercial space on the ground floor.

On the next street, the abandoned Alexander and Albermarle buildings, long the most visible manifestation of the town's decay, may soon have a second bite of the cherry. High-end property developers the Doma Group purchased the buildings back in 2010 in the hopes of rebuilding the offices, and then watched as the office market in Woden grew weaker by the year. The government's lease variation charge made the redevelopment of hulking office blocks unviable. And so, the group has changed it focus, and plans to turn the offices into apartments, around 250 of them, with the low annexes between the buildings to be demolished. When it comes to former Commonwealth offices, the high ceilings and solid concrete grids are now a massive plus, says managing director Jure Domazet.

He says the group plans to submit a development application by May this year, and if they go ahead, they could help change the town centre for the better.

"I straight out admit they don't look good now and we're not super proud of them at all, but we're desperate to do something with them," he says.

"We want to do the right thing. It'll start happening this year, and when it does, it will be a lovely spot."

"Woden will never be a horrible place, it's just that right now, and maybe for the last five years, it's been neglected."

Lorena Skipper has no regrets about her decision to go into business in Woden. She is hopeful the new businesses opening nearby and developments planned will continue to drive the positive change she sees beginning.

"Things are picking up," she says.