Visitors to Sydney's CBD could buy fresh food from a 24-hour market and enjoy gigs and permanent light shows if the recommendations in a new report become reality.
The Committee for Sydney has launched a report by a group of commissioners tasked with figuring out how to breathe life into Sydney's CBD after it turned into a ghost town during the pandemic.
Doing so was a matter of “great urgency”, the think tank said.
“It can be a place of shared experiences, authenticity and diversity,” the new report said.
“It can be even more inclusive, creative, fair and innovative – a place for everyone.”
NSW Trade Minister Stuart Ayres said in a response to the report that he wanted to transform Sydney's CBD into a “24-hour global playground”.
“This is about transforming Sydney's CBD from a nine-to-five workplace to a 24-hxjmtzywour global playground for innovation, entertainment and culture,” Mr Ayres said.
The report says “greater diversity of use” should be encouraged so that the area can be more than ”just a business district”.
Families, students and creative types are some of the groups the authors hope to attract to the area.
Among the recommendations are a pilot program for subsidised child care, a plan to convert empty hotel rooms to rental homes and an idea to build a natural amphitheatre for outdoor gigs.
The streets should be bustling until late at night, be lit up by artistic installations and feature a new 24-hour food and drink market, the report says.
The report also calls for the CBD to celebrate its Aboriginal heritage and encourage visitors to engage and learn about that history.
“How do we tell the different stories of different communities across the greater metropolitan area?” Sydney’s 24-hour economy commissioner Michael Rodrigues said.
“If that's done well, then you’ll create places of interest that people just simply want to be at and people will commute to.”
The coronavirus pandemic and successive lockdowns have gutted the city’s business district and emptied out the streets.
Foot traffic in Sydney's CBD was still stuck at around 45 per cent of pre-pandemic levels in December, more than a month after the last lockdown ended, according to a Roy Morgan analysis.
