Would this be 'Retro' Landscaping??

In a recent post I wrote about the redevelopment of a commercial site in my suburb...from derelict warehouse/distribution centre to a new shopping/dining precinct. Early last year I had taken some photos starting near the local high school...

Just past this grove of trees was the old site...this section is still untouched by developers...

 The old fence posts...

 Looking back towards the high school...

Then I took photos of the old warehouse site...

 Not much to see...quite overgrown though...
The next photo shows the small pools of water near the boundary of the property. This is the remnant of a small creek that used to flow across the road and continue on to join Kedron Brook.

Long ago, the creek had been diverted by pipes under the road.

When work began on the site all the undergrowth was removed of course...
Looking east towards that grove of trees...

 Looking west to where the new supermarket was being built...

The land is at road level...but that was about to change!
At the end of the project this is the same scene looking west...

 Looking south south west...

 The creek bed is back!!! After 60 years or so! (it may not be in the exact same spot though)

The landscaping certainly was quite a surprise!

Changes...

Once upon a time a group of farmers from Lancashire settled in an area in the north of the fledgling settlement of Brisbane. The area, which would become known as Everton Park, was covered in scrub, much of which was cleared for grazing and vineyards. This photo was taken in 1910 and shows South Pine Rd, with Stafford Rd intersection on the left, mid photo. The man on horseback is the postman (that track/road where the postman's horse is standing is Gordon Pde) who has brought mail from Alderley.

The suburb remained quite rural until after WW2 when huge tracts of housing were built in the area. Then in the late 1950s, a huge warehouse/distribution centre for an early supermarket chain, Brisbane Cash and Carry (BCC) was built on land bounded by Sth Pine Rd and Stafford Rd. (At various times I've written posts about those paddocks of Murphy's Dairy seen beside the warehouse buildings...the remnants of which still exist to this day.)

Those readers who know Brisbane might notice the TV towers on the range.

BCC would be eventually taken over by Woolworths and the complex would be a big employer of local residents. A Woolworths' supermarket was built in the 60s/70s but it had long been abandoned when I moved to the suburb. Eventually though the complex was moved to Acacia Ridge and the site languished. 

Over the years plans for redevelopment of the site by the owners, Woolworths, were submitted for approval ; some plans were rejected outright and the owners of close-by shopping centres put in objections and one development company decided to pull out. But eventually early in 2014 things started to happen.

The demolition took months!! As well as the big warehouse buildings and the old supermarket, the big trees on the site were demolished too...

And I took photos on my phone or camera whenever I noticed progress on the build.
Obviously a lot of earthworks after demolition and carting off of all those bricks from the buildings!

 The site is so big that there are 2 frontages. The next photo shows the work from the old entrance on Southpine Rd...

 Then suddenly in August 2014, (well us locals felt it was sudden...one day nothing, then next day!) large walls appeared...this was the new Woolies supermarket...

Eventually work began on another building on the site...Masters a hardware store.

In the meantime work continued on the new supermarket and shops...

Showing construction progress from Dec 2014 to April 2015

And then the box shaped buildings at the other end of the site began to 'morph' into the familiar looking Masters...showing photos taken January to April 2015

And of course by late April this year, there needed to be lots of tidying up and landscaping the site as it was to open for business in May...

The supermarket was the first to open. DH and I went for a look a few days after the official opening...
The balloon arch was still there from the Opening :-)

 Above the entrance to the supermarket is a collage mural of the original buildings on the site...

 These 2 gentlemen are obviously VIPs from the Distribution Centre Days...

 The exterior,,,

 Looking north...food outlets and a gym.

Now one more photo...the corner of Stafford Rd and Sth Pine Rd...photo taken yesterday. Its a bit different from that first photo in this post! The corner I'm referring to is behind the postman in that old photo.

DH and I still continue to shop at the Coles supermarket across the road as the staff know us. We also continue to patronise our usual coffee shop instead of the fancy new one near the Woolies' supermarket entrance.

Number 52 through the years...

Regular readers would remember all those posts that I have written over the past 13 months about the redevelopment of the house block next door to us. From late April last year,the 50s house has been demolished, the block cut and sculpted by large machinery, foundations dug and laid, and an unimaginable amount of concrete has been poured into the site. Eventually from all this organised chaos and dust, 7 townhouses have emerged to take the place of that original house. Being me, I've constructed a little timeline of this development for this post, starting in the 1930s...

On the rise behind, and to the right of these houses is the farmland that would eventually become our street...

1932 approx

After WW2 this area became part of a large housing estate...the next photo is No 52 in the mid 1960s...the house is 13 years old...

The next photo shows No 52 with a little glimpse of what eventually would become our house...

The reason why I have these photos is that No 52 was the childhood home of a school friend of mine and she lent me the photos to scan and use in this blog post...
Here is Irene and one of her sisters in their high school uniforms...they are standing beside the front steps...

The years went by and the house was owned by a succession of people.The house would eventually spend many years as a rental property for its then owner. In the years since I've lived here, there have been about 5 different renters...we knew though that one day the owner would redevelop the site as this part of the suburb is zoned Res B...multiple dwellings. Therefore he wasn't planning to spend much money on maintenance...so the little house languished while waiting for this redevelopment...
March 2013...the tenant had to be out by the 16th...(I bet he didn't get a reduction in rent because the place was almost tumbling down...note those eaves!)

the western side of the house...

a closer look at that fascia...

Then the signs went up, a week after the tenant left...late March 2013

Early May 2013...
I was actually away in New Zealand from late April to May 14, so my dear neighbour took photos for me :-)
Like this one...

 All gone...

June 2014...the back of the block...

 The front of the block...

Our closest neighbours...well one of them...there's a detached house behind this one too!

A peep at the garden of that first house

And as marker that's still there where our front fences meet.

Disclaimer: I've changed the number of the house to 'protect' all those involved. :-)

  

Another walk around my suburb....

Last March I wrote a post about the part of my suburb that is a few minutes walk from my back gate. I posted photos of what was the remnants of a dairy farm and on which now the present owner fattens a few beef cattle ready for market.
Paddocks at the end of the back street...

 The old farmhouse...

In this post I'll post some photos of the part of my suburb which is on the other side of the main road which runs through here. I took these photos last May when DH and I walked home from the protest meeting at the local high school. The state government planned to close the local high school so many, many people came together to protest this action...(and the school eventually was saved from closure)

DH was given a sign to carry....



The next photo shows part of the group of concerned citizens at the meeting in the school hall...







Now for the photos taken on the walk home...
Making our way to the gate...

 Now we are walking down Stafford Rd and here is this swathe of bushland, just down from the school gates

The poor old front fence has both star pickets and very old wooden posts that would have been there for years!

Looking back towards the school, showing the wonky fence...I think this swathe of land is owned by the state government...it has been kept mown and tidy...

But now we move on to some not so well kept property

A surveyor's peg amongst the undergrowth???

 Not looking good eh?

 Some water can be seen in the next photo. Many years ago a little stream flowed through the area from the other side of Stafford Rd where Coles etc are now. When the shopping centre was built, the stream was piped underground and also under the road...

Pipe bringing the stream's water across/under  the road....

Now we can see large brick buildings through those trees and the grass is mowed...

And then we come to a padlocked big gate and you can see a little booth...

 Behind the booth we can see big buildings...

I think you have guessed that these buildings are empty. This is the old Woolworths ( a large supermarket chain here in Australia; this was one of their giant warehouses) Bulk store which employed so many locals in its heyday, but this large site has sat empty, unloved and as an eyesore for many many years. A number of plans for redevelopment have been submitted but as yet nothing has really happened. Plans for the site range from retail, entertainment and residential precincts, and the latest rumour is that the giant hardware chain Masters, is going to use one of the huge buildings. 

Many people drive down Stafford Rd past this site not realising that a low set building in front of the bulk store was actually a Woolworths supermarket...one of the very early ones! The local graffitists have mistaken it for a large canvas...it's covered in 'tags'.

 Another view of this vintage supermarket...sad really...

 The end of one of the large brick buildings that make up the bulk store.

So there you have it; another view of my suburb. We are just over 8 kilometres from  the Brisbane CBD and any eventual developments of this large site will probably tend towards a fair bit of residential I would guess.