FRANKIE DeGROOT | Local News | Contact
Controversial plans to relocate Sydney’s popular Powerhouse Museum to a less-valuable site in Parramatta have hit an unexpected hurdle, after the Parramatta site was also subject to an offer from another developer. Consequently, the entire museum will now be moved to Broken Hill.
The popular Powerhouse Museum was founded in the 1880s and was later moved into a former power plant in Ultimo, from which it takes it’s name.
In 2015, the NSW State Government announced plans to relocate the museum to Parramatta, ostensibly due to a whole bunch of buzzwords like “culture” and “accessibility” but mainly due to more lucrative words like “high density” and “rezoning”.
The decision was instantly panned by anyone without a vested interest as it involved the demolition of a row of heritage terraces, historic house Willow Grove, and all or part of the historic former power plant.
Apartment towers would be built on both the Ultimo and Parramatta sites, fulfilling the NSW State Government’s ongoing drive to replace every Thing with Thing-featuring-residential-apartments.
However, the controversial plan looks set to be changed again after a Chinese real estate developer made a generous offer on the Parramatta site.
It’s believed the offer will be enough to make the Green Bans whacked on a couple of buildings at the Parramatta site go away in the next few months after the re-relocation is formalized.
As part of the plan, instead of housing the Powerhouse-less Powerhouse Museum and also apartments, the Parramatta site would be used for apartments and also more apartments, whilst the museum will instead be relocated to Broken Hill, thereby outpacing Sydney’s urban sprawl by about 350 years.
In a statement, Premier Gladys Berejiklian said the decision would be a shot in the arm for the local economy and would slash travel times by almost 13 hours for any of the 18,000 residents who wanted to travel to Sydney to visit the museum or just punch on over bog roll.
Furthermore, whilst the Broken Hill proposal would unfortunately also result in the loss of a large swathe of heritage buildings, the Premier was pleased to announce the residents of those buildings would be able to buy an apartment in one of the towers which would replace them.
