The announcement last week that development behemoth Geocon will no longer be involved in the Kingston Arts Precinct is just one more instalment in a twisted and winding road.
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It's a road pockmarked with periodic skirmishes over heritage, impassioned community feedback, multiple proposals and an arts community crying out for a sense of cohesion.
But with this latest development, we could finally be entering a period of optimism and hope, instead of uncertainty and cynicism.
Buildings have been saved and lost, arts organisations have made umpteen compromises, promises have been declared and cast aside, and now, finally, an unpopular development contract to get the precinct built has been torn up.
At this stage, more than 20 years after it was first mooted, it is becoming increasingly difficult to imagine a time when the Kingston Arts Precinct will be a reality, rather than a concept.
But with this latest development, we could finally be entering a period of optimism and hope, instead of uncertainty and cynicism.
Geocon is known more for its glitzy high-rise apartments than design-oriented community hubs, so it's no surprise that inner-south residents expressed relief last week at the ACT government's decision to cancel the development contract, signed just two years ago. Kingston - and specifically the 40,295-square-metre site earmarked for the arts precinct - is one of Canberra's oldest suburbs, and the heritage values of the existing buildings has long been a defining feature of the plans.
But quite apart from the buildings, the planned precinct has been intended - in theory at least - as a way of creating synergy and a sense of wholeness to Canberra's physically scattered arts community.
The precinct has always involved several long-established arts organisations that have been waiting - some for decades - for custom-built facilities, and if they can all be in one precinct, then all the better.
The aforementioned skirmishes over the years - the most infamous of which involved the historic Fitters Workshop, the Megalo Print Studio, a yearly music festival and some stunning acoustics - have done nothing to quell the sense that fostering cohesion in the vibrant community simply hasn't been a priority for the ACT government.
Each year, funds are doled out, seemingly arbitrarily, to certain key organisations - the Belconnen Arts Centre was the big winner last year - while other, smaller outfits, less tied to a location, are left to languish in premises that have long been deemed unsuitable.
But this latest episode in the saga of the precinct that still doesn't exist looks set to place the project - set to include purpose-built arts facilities alongside residential and commercial developments - back on track.
The ACT government's Suburban Land Agency will be taking over the development itself, signalling that it is now well and truly on the agenda for completion, albeit in 2025, 10 years after it was put out to tender. And, it must be said, nearly 30 years since the concept first came into being.
But that's development, really, especially when it involves some of the city's most treasured heritage buildings - the Powerhouse (now the Glassworks) and the Fitters Workshop (now a some-time venue for music concerts and salesroom-for-hire).
Here's hoping the departure of Geocon signals the start of a new, and more productive era for all the organisations involved, and for the many who are, frankly, tired of the last decades of starry-eyed talk with no action.
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