Central Park

Kensington Lane is a rare and curious place - an entire street tucked away on the cityside of Central Park, marking Central Park's eastern boundary. The streetscape of Kensington Street - as it is currently called - is itself a heritage item, and the road is lined with heritage terraces, houses and warehouses on the eastern side, and the imposing heritage Administration Building on the western edge.

Kensington Lane presents a rare opportunity to transform an abandoned corner of urban Sydney into an active, characterful city laneway, lined with bars, cafes, boutique retail and creative businesses. Tonkin Zulhaika Greer are working on the adaptive re-use and transformation of Kensington Lane, imagining a Melbourne-style laneway, eclectic, dynamic and human-scaled, respectfully restoring and integrating the heritage fabric into newly constructed elements.

Frasers is working with TZG to finalise the designs and uses for Kensington Lane now, including student dwellings, a boutique hotel and an eclectic collection of commercial and retail premises, all sharing a rich and characterful street-level experience designed for curious pedestrians. Protection and adaptive re-use of the heritage buildings is of paramount importance, and is both required under the masterplan consent for Central Park and intrinsic to Frasers' vision for this laneway precinct.

With work to commence mid-2013, Kensington Lane should be substantially delivered by the end of 2014.

Terrace and warehouse retail precinct | Plans for the adaptive re-use of heritage warehouses and terraces along Kensington Street were submitted to the Department of Planning in December 2012. These plans are on public exhibition until 1 March, during which time you're welcome to view the plans and offer your comments. You can view the plans here.

Boutique heritage hotel | In December 2012, Frasers was delighted to announce an agreement with Unlisted Collection to develop the fabulous old heritage buildings on the corner of Broadway and Kensington Street. For more on this part of the precinct, visit Kensington Lane hotel.

The temporary creative life of Kensington Street | Frasers has a keen interest in activating Kensington Street – which was almost entirely vacant and generally dilapidated when we acquired the old CUB site in 2007 – while we plan its future transformation. In September 2008 we started FraserStudios, transforming three warehouse into visual and performing arts studios providing free studio space and free or subsidised rehearsal and performance space to Sydney’s arts community (managed for us by talented local arts collective, Queen Street Studio). This temporary creative activation of Kensington Street has drawn artists and audiences to Chippendale in their thousands, and the street has hosted Underbelly Arts Festival, the Chippendale Food Fair and other major community events. Frasers and Queen Street Studio were awarded the national Encouragement Award by the Australian Business Arts Foundation in 2010, for our work on FraserStudios, and been active in establishing working models for turning empty spaces into thriving creative spaces. FraserStudios closed in June 2012, after almost four years of amazing creativity, so work could begin on the Kensington Lane precinct.

Frasers also provided free space on Kensington Street to the Chippendale Food Co-op, and currently provides subsidised space to UTS and other arts ventures. These temporary activations of an otherwise vacant corner of Sydney have been successful in creative a vibrant, safe and spirited streetscape, even before work begins on Kensington Lane’s permanent reinvention.