Boutique Hotel and Retail Planned for 2 Oxford Street, Bulimba

Architectural criticisms aside (I’m certain the BCC will insist this building is pulled back further from the ferry terminal so lets not worry…) the designer will have trouble finding a fire engineer who will support the exit travel distances from Class 3 areas – it always surprises me this is rarely resolved at DA stage when it changes the design so much to fix it up!

The proposal does not pay respect to the historic and beautiful Bulimba ferry terminal. The Terrace section (3 levels) adjacent to the terminal is too tall and too close to the old ferry terminal building which has not been rendered realistically (there is a clock tower on top of the roof, the roof is a different shape, the height and the walls are shown incorrectly. Some of the drawings indicate a section of building cantilevered over the Oxford Street lot boundary and obscuring the Ferry Terminal. Section AA is not notated on the plans and incorrectly represents the Ferry Terminals relationship to the site. The proportion of hospitality space is out of proportion with the retail and residential components and the “dead end” landscaped area has limited appeal to locals when there is parkland and riverwalks already nearby.

Okay, so people will be “drawn to the river park” by walking through a “tunnel” under a three storey plus rooftop terrace complex that oddly is obscured by the ferry terminal in the render?

It’s a nice development, albeit with some fairly odd planning, and the retail tenancy to the North side of the core is unlikely to be terribly successful unless it is a hatted restaurant or hundreds of people, however I don’t feel it quite addresses the River Edge Strategy by building a several storey structure over the only access past the building while it would just as easy for the walkway to pass in front of the terrace. Not sure about the scale given the lack of information referring to the surrounding properties.