Before it was ever home to cafes, bars and lots of new apartments, the Kingston Foreshore was a relic of Canberra's early industrial history which had come to be seen as an eyesore on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin.
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But all that was set to change, The Canberra Times reported on this day 25 years ago, with Chief Minister Kate Carnell standing among the transformers stacked near the old Kingston powerhouse to say the future of the precinct should be determined in an international design competition.
Even then, the site was at the centre of one of the ACT's longest-running planning sagas, with efforts to find a suitable future use for the area dating back a decade. The complexities of planning regulations which covered the area, in some parts owned by the ACT and in others by the Commonwealth, had hampered previous efforts.
The site itself was bigger than Darling Harbour which "doesn't mean we are planning anything like a Darling Harbour-style development" but lent itself to designs which included a mix of parks, cafes, arts and cultural facilities, Mrs Carnell said.
Mrs Carnell also said she believed the whole project would be funded by the private sector.
The National Capital Authority agreed in principle with developing the area, while the ACT Opposition's spokesman said the proposal was poorly thought out for a significant site.
