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. We're imagining a Melbourne-style laneway, eclectic, dynamic and human-scaled, respectfully restoring and integrating the heritage fabric into newly constructed elements.

Likely uses will include small bars, cafes and dining, retail shops, creative workspaces, a boutique hotel and housing for students, all sharing a rich and characterful street-level experience designed for curious pedestrians.

Tonkin Zulhaika Greer are working on the adaptive re-use and transformation of Kensington Lane. Frasers is working with TZG on various designs and uses for Kensington Lane now, and plans to have concepts for review by the community and planning stakeholders by the end of 2011. All going well, Kensington Street should be delivered a little after Central Park's 'Park Lane' residential buildings, in late 2013.

The temporary creative life of Kensington Lane | 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 also provides free space on Kensington Street to the Chippendale Food Co-op, and subsidised space to 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.

Frasers and Queen Street Studio were awarded the national Encouragement Award by the Australian Business Arts Foundation last year, for our work on FraserStudios, and been active in establishing working models for turning empty spaces into thriving creative spaces.

If you are interested in retail or commercial spaces in Kensington Lane, contact Frasers Property at sales@frasersproperty.com.au.