Sunshine Coast Council had clear objectives when setting out to establish Beerwah as a major regional activity centre.
Judges at IPWEAQ’s 2014 Excellence Awards recognised Sunshine Coast Council’s efforts by awarding the project the top prize for its Place+ Beerwah Public Domain Improvement Project.
“It is a great honour to be recognised by our local government peers for delivering outstanding outcomes in the
Beerwah Place+ Project,” said Chris Sturgess, Coordinator Civil Projects, Project Delivery Infrastructure Services, Sunshine Coast Regional Council.
“For Sunshine Coast Council to win the top award confirms the level of skill, talent, expertise and pride that we have available in our planning, design and construction teams and our ability to successfully deliver high profile streetscape projects of this nature.”
New approach
The Beerwah project was the first undertaken by the council under its Place+ program, an initiative that brings
together council with the community and key stakeholders for activity centre development projects.
For the project, the council placed equal importance on stimulating local business activity, promoting healthier lifestyles and facilitating community interactions, as improving visual amenity, lowering vehicle speed and maintaining the number of parking spots.
The community was engaged from the beginning of the project through surveys, workshops and community forums.A group of 40 local stakeholders were broken down into seven focus groups, which fed back into the council’s action plan for the centre.
Project newsletters and door stopping local traders helped keep the local businesses informed as to the project’s progress.
Carry on regardless
Adam Stewart, Project Officer, Civil Projects, Project Delivery Infrastructure Services at Sunshine Coast Regional Council said construction took place in a fully operational business precinct.
“The biggest challenge was to ensure that the town continued to operate with traders remaining open for business
and car parking accessible for customers while we were demolishing and constructing new footpaths, resealing roads and completing major landscaping works,” he told
PWPro.
Council acted as principle contractor during construction. Council Works Services crews undertook all road and major stormwater works, while council’s on-site manager oversaw major landscape, Energex, Telstra and Unity Water contractors.
A multi-zone approach to construction proved successful for the project, allowing business as usual on part of the street, and has since been applied by the council at the Alexandra Parade Streetscape project.
“Every streetscape project is different and it is important to respect the differences between the individual communities in which we work,” said Sturgess.
“For instance, Beerwah is not as densely populated as some of the other townships where we have completed streetscape projects (such as Coolum, Mooloolaba and Alexandra Headland). This presented an even more pressing need to work closely with the business and broader community to ensure that ‘business as usual’ status was retained.”
Sunshine Coast Council will conduct an audit one year on from completion of the project to benchmark the health of the town centre against its original score.
The fact that previously vacant shops are now filled and business owners are investing in their shop fronts gives the council hope that it will be able to improve on its previous 43 per cent score.