Esplanade 'sandpit' up for makeover?

The old Esplanade Hotel site could get a radical makeover under a City of Albany plan to turn the area into public open space.

The fortunes of the Middleton Beach area took a hit in January 2007 when Singapore-based developer CS Partners demolished the Esplanade Hotel, turning it into Albany’s most expensive sandpit.

With a sale nowhere on the horizon, the City of Albany is now working with the Middleton Beach Group and the Fredericktown Progress Association to secure the site for public open space until the land is sold.

If CS Partners agree to the idea, the City will draft and consider a concept plan that will outline the proposal to make the area suitable for public use at minimal cost. City of Albany chief executive Faileen James said the full cost of the proposal would not be known until the land owners negotiated the terms of the lease and the project was considered by council.

She said the City had initiated the idea because the use and visual amenity of the Middleton Beach site had been identified as one of the primary issues the community wanted to address.

About 30 people gathered on Barnett Street with less than 12 hours notice last Friday to discuss the proposal with Ms James.

Middleton Beach Group chair Jane Mourtiz said there had been unanimous support for the idea.

In June 2010 the group wrote to CS Partners asking if they would consider the idea. There was no response.

Ms Mourtiz said the timing was right for the idea to become a reality because it was logical.

“The City of Albany has agreed to the development on the foreshore and that means it is less likely there will be an immediate buyer for the Esplanade site,” she said.

“If the City leases the site they take on the public liability insurance, so it costs the owner less. We all lament the loss of our hotel, but you can’t just do nothing.”

The Middleton Beach Group has already engaged a landscape architect to look into a low-cost, low-key design that includes native plants and an access pathfor the disabled.

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