Garema Place is an iconic and well-loved public square within Canberra’s City Centre. It serves two main functions: an everyday place to meet friends, and a place for community gathering.
It has its own identity, separate to other areas of our City Centre. It’s a highly social space that offers opportunities for unstructured gatherings, cultural expression, social interaction, celebration and public demonstration.
It’s a landmark destination within the City Centre, encouraging a variety of people to use the space, including locals and visitors. Historically, it was a major step in the evolution of the commercial centre developed between Northbourne Avenue and Ainslie Avenue.
Early plans for Garema Place had included shops facing lawns like Green Square in Kingston, but this was replaced with retail frontages on roadways and parking lots. By the mid 1960’s Garema Place was converted to a pedestrian plaza for formal and informal gathering.
Garema Place is surrounded by buildings that showcase the history of Canberra through a series of developments over the last 70 years. The retail offerings in these buildings have evolved over time, trending away from service and specialty shops toward cafes and bars.
As our city changes, Garema Place is becoming an important gateway to the retail centre of Civic, particularly because of its proximity to the Alinga Street light rail stop and bus interchange.
The City Walk Urban Renewal project, undertaken in 2020, was the first step in revitalising the important pedestrian route that connects the east and west of the City Centre. The project was brought forward to invigorate the City Centre as a response to economic challenges posed by the pandemic.
City Walk became a greener, more inviting space to be. Over 3583 native plants, 635m2 of irrigated lawns, and 23 new trees were planted, creating a lively green space, and encouraging social interaction, play and moments to linger longer.
The works revitalised City Walk, creating a series of centrally located “landscaped urban rooms ”. These rooms changed the way people move through the space, encouraging them to walk adjacent to shop windows and doors, increasing engagement with the traders along City Walk.
Since the upgrade, business owners have reported greater satisfaction with the presentation of City Walk, and several retail tenancies undertook renovations, displaying new confidence in the longer-term performance of City Walk.
This upgrade demonstrates how people-focused design principles, outlined in the Great Place Guide, contribute to creating great public spaces that people love and want to spend time in.
The same principles underpin plans to transform Garema Place into a modern and thriving public plaza. We’ve developed proposed designs to refresh the space and we’re seeking community feedback. The designs – available on the YourSay website – showcase a less cluttered area with more greenery and informal dining opportunities . The result being a more open and flexible space that supports both special events and everyday activities.
Considered to be the community’s living room in the City Centre, we want Canberrans’ input on these designs to ensure the space continues to meet the city’s growing needs for the coming decades. The consultation will include engagement with the Ngunnawal community to understand how they would like to recognise connection to country.
As we plan for the next evolution of Garema Place, we’ll be consulting with businesses, property owners, and the broader community.
We want to create a sense of arrival into the City Centre, improving the experience people have in Garema Place, in the day and evening . The upgrade will build on the success of the City Walk urban renewal project and create a safer and more inviting space for people to visit, socialise, dine and shop.
We look forward to the role a greener, more spacious and modern Garema Place will play in the renewal of our City Centre.
Have your say on the proposed upgrade to Garema Place.
We acknowledge the Ngunnawal people as traditional custodians of the ACT and recognise any other people or families with connection to the lands of the ACT and region. We acknowledge and respect their continuing culture and the contribution they make to the life of this city and this region.
