Parking area at risk of closure Author: By MARIO CHRISTODOULOU Date: 14/05/2008 Publication: Illawarra Mercury
MORE than 150 inner-city parking spots could soon be wiped off the map as Wollongong City Council struggles to maintain control of a controversial car park. Wollongong 's 155-space
Rawson Stcar park will be closed by Friday if the council fails to buy back the site it sold to developer Jempac under controversial circumstances four years ago. Developer Jempac wanted to build a 60-bed medical facility with four operating theatres, a 90-bed nursing home and 127 independent seniors' living units on the site. Fearing it would lose precious inner city parking spaces, the council in 2004 sold the site to developer Jempac for $6.1 million after Jempac agreed to build and then resell to the council a multi-level parking station for $4 million. But the agreement turned out to be a costly mistake. Since 2004 many companies under the Jempac umbrella have been involved in litigation or faced winding-up orders. Jempac's financial backer, Hanover Finance, called in its debt and has been attempting to sell the site since November 2007. The council launched a failed bid to buy back the site in December, in an effort to retain the parking spaces, offering an amount considerably higher than its $6.1 million selling price. It is now making a second attempt to buy the site, but is faced with Friday's deadline. If it fails to buy the site in the next three days the car park will be closed and the parking spaces lost. The council estimates it will have a deficit of 6000 parking spaces in the city within 20 years. On Monday the council's communications and strategy manager, Greg Doyle, said the council was fighting to keep the spaces in public hands. "We are doing everything possible to keep (the car park) open," he said. Hanover chief operating officer Perry Cornish said the company was still in negotiations with the council. "Whilst we do not comment on the specifics of any individual loan or lender I can tell you that we are in negotiations with council to buy a portion of the site," she said. "In terms of the car park, we are reviewing options at present pending the outcome of those negotiations.