Adelaide’s iconic Gouger Street faces an exodus of diners as a $15 million Adelaide City Council revamp brings months of disruption and parking cuts, with long-running restaurants already warning of heavy losses.
Long-standing establishment Wah Hing is bracing for a heavy financial hit, citing construction chaos, dwindling parking and the loss of thousands of dollars in privately purchased outdoor tables omitted from the council’s new designs.
Emilia Elovaris, 28, whose family has run the Gouger St restaurant for 21 years, said traders feared the scale of the project would keep customers away and make it even harder for businesses to survive.
“We paid for (tables) ourselves, they’re commercial-grade fixtures and now from what we could tell, the council is just going to remove them and throw them away,” she said.
She said the biggest concern, however, was the impact prolonged works would have on trade, with noise, dust, trucks and reduced parking already affecting the customer experience.
The Gouger St revitalisation project – which the Adelaide City Council reports has reached the 70 per cent design milestone – will include safer and wider footpaths, improve pavements and pedestrian crossings and upgraded signage.
The updated design also included more greening and a planted median at Mill St, new zebra crossings, replacing pavers, upgraded lighting and public seating but at the expense of some on-street carparking.
Ms Elovaris said she feared the works would discourage people from visiting the area and even when finished, the loss of parking would cause a down-turn in traffic because spaces were already in short supply.
“We get a lot of complaints about (parking),” Ms Elovaris said.
“With construction and then eventually the removal of a lot of car parks, people will probably think, ‘what’s the point of going into the city?’”
She said city residents who regularly dined and shopped in the area would also feel the impact.
Major construction has not yet begun on the project, but Ms Elovaris said businesses were already seeing signs of disruption through night works including noise, dust and trucks that affected outdoor diners.
“We’ll have customers sitting outside and then these big trucks come up and it gets all dusty,” they said.
“The customer experience changes and they either leave early or move inside.”
Ms Elovaris said her family was calling for more transparency and updated information about the project and for consultation with traders.
The upgrade would be in conjunction with about $10m of asset renewal works, including street lighting, kerbs and stormwater infrastructure.
The Gouger St works were part of the council’s wider main street upgrade plan to improve Hindley, O’Connell and Hutt streets.
Adelaide City Council has been contacted for comment.