The 2022 Urban Taskforce Development Excellence Awards were held at Doltone House in Sydney and acknowledged developments that achieved the best outcomes for all stakeholders in terms of client requirements, environment, business and community considerations, as well as time, cost and quality.
Developed by Cadence and constructed by Texco Construction, Visy Glass’ distribution facility at 71 Simcock Avenue, is a 48,780sqm site consisting of two warehouses at 20,300sqm and 14,690sqm, along with 200sqm of office space.
The infill facility features large-scale artwork wrapping around all four corners of both warehouses facing residents on the Hudsons Road side of the development. Created by artists Kitt Bennett and Georgia Hill, two pocket parks featuring heritage materials from the previous factory, and an information board on the site’s history.
Head of Development at Cadence, Mitchell Kent, was on hand to accept the award on the organisation’s behalf.
“Our thanks to Urban Taskforce and the judging panel for the award, it’s testament to the work completed by our team internally in developing a facility that not only addresses the needs of our client, but makes a great addition to the landscape of Spotswood,” said Kent following the awards.
“As an infill development, it was important for us to create something that aesthetically wasn’t going to be just your run of the mill warehouse for the benefit of the residents, and we were definitely able to achieve that with the artwork from Kitt and Georgia.”
Cadence paid homage to Spotswood’s rich industrial history with two pocket parks for public use, utilising heritage materials from the original site including trusses created from demolished timber previously on the property.
The site’s history is also outlined via a heritage information board located in one of the parks.
“We know the Spotswood residents are really proud of their suburb’s past, so it was nice to be able to maintain some of that history within the new site,” added Kent.
Operationally, the facility has enabled Visy to realise significant cost savings relating to distribution and product loss.
Visy’s existing supply chain in Spotswood involved having to transport all product off site to a separate distribution centre, where it was stored before distributing to clients over the following months, or even years.
Bringing the manufacturing and distribution together solved this issue for Visy and cut out an entire leg of its supply chain.
“We had a number of challenges in rejuvenating what was a dis-used and dilapidated site, so we’re very pleased with the recognition,” said Charlie Buxton, Managing Director at Cadence.
“The location and age of existing services, re-locating a telco tower which was in the middle of a site and ensuring we didn’t disrupt Visy’s ongoing operations at the neighbouring facility were all successfully overcome by our team.
“Adding in the design elements added a point of difference for an industrial facility of this nature, and there’s no reason we can’t keep exploring that side of things for future projects.”