Mixed Use Buildings

It doesn't seem that long ago when Peter was advising the owners of Ruthven Mansions at 15 to 27 Pulteney Street on the feasibility of selling off the apartments on separate strata titles while having a retail arcade in separate ownership at ground level. This all seemed so novel (not to mention risky) back in 1993!

Ruthven Mansions was built in 1911 and was a very early venture in apartment living in the City of Adelaide. This obviously fell out of fashion it later became home to the Government Chest Clinic in 1953 and was then refurbished in 1980 by architect John Chappel to operate as an apartment hotel.

Now mixed use buildings are quite common place, because multiple uses are often the most economic use of expensive city land. According to the Adelaide City Council the city population in 2010 is 21,000 and forecast to increase by another 20,130 over the next 21 years. This means that many more mixed use buildings are going to be built and we hope that they involve some new and exciting architecture!

Click on these links for more information on real life examples of mixed use buildings in the city:

223 North Terrace

23 King William Street

Mixed Use Building - 223 North Terrace

Construction on this building commenced in 1969 as a next door carpark for the South Australian department store John Martins. The iconic store closed in 1998, but the North Terrace car park remained to service the new David Jones store which opened in its place.

The Haywards, a wealthy merchant family that owned "Johnnies" had originally planned to build an international hotel on the rooftop of the carpark. The structure was designed with additional reinforcement to take the extra weight, and the lift shafts were strategically positioned so that they could be extended.

In 2001, Buchan Lee in consortium acquired the air rights above the car park and developed the "Martin Towers" apartment project, which later became known as "223 North Terrace". Construction of the 2 apartment buildings (the "North Tower" and "South Tower") commenced in 2003. The transfer zone of the existing carpark roof between the 2 buildings was developed into a recreational area with a lap pool, spa, sauna, gym and skygarden while the sub-basement of the carpark was set aside for apartment resident parking.

In addition to the carpark and apartment mix, the third use of the building is retail shopping, with many shops in the ground floor arcade joining Rundle Mall, as well as several fronting to Charles Street and North Terrace.

Mixed Use Building - 23 King William Street

This is a heritage listed building which was built for the AMP Society in 1936 and was completely refurbished and converted a couple of years ago from its office use into studio, 1 and 2 bedroom apartments focussing on our growing international student market. Re-branded as UV Apartments (University Village), the building also contains 4 common area facilities incorporating TV lounge, reading room, study room and a games room.

The ground level is mostly taken up with an interesting tea room, restaurant and martini bar called Saldechin.