Community hub displaced by Franklin Street development
Community groups that use The Joinery on Franklin Street are calling on the state government to find them a suitable new home before the site is redeveloped for housing.
The Joinery, located at the old city bus station, is home to about 100 community groups that use its facilities, including event spaces, workshop rooms and a garden with veggie patches and chickens.
These groups are hosted by the main tenant, SA’s Conservation Council, which has been housed at 111 Franklin Street since 2014 when it won an Adelaide City Council tender to revitalise the site.
The state government bought the site from the Adelaide City Council in 2023 and plan for it to become a mixed-use precinct, including a minimum of 392 apartments. Render: Renewal SA.
Renewal SA’s $500 million-dollar Tapangka project is slated to begin work on the site in early/mid-2026, and the Conservation Council has to find a new home by September this year.
South Australian Grassroots Ecosystem (SAGE) calls The Joinery home and is concerned about having no guarantee of an alternative site as the demolition date gets closer.
SAGE spokesperson Drew Adams says they understand The Joinery’s fate is sealed, but they want to find a new home that’s “as good as or better than what we’ve got”.
“We might not be able to save The Joinery in terms of bricks and mortar, but we have no intention of losing the place that we’ve created, even if we lose the space,” Drew says.
“We’ve put in a lot of effort to create the social value that we have.
“Although there are community centres around the Adelaide region, what makes The Joinery quite unique is it really is a community sustainability hub, it’s not just a community centre that’s open from nine till three, catering to Zumba and Mahjong.
“It’s a place where civic engagement takes place, where young people are energised and involved.”
You might like
SAGE and other community members have formed a campaign group called Save Our Spaces to protect the essence of the Joinery and help find it a new home.
A before and after of the Joinery space after the Conservation Council revamped the site. This picture: The Joinery
Conservation Council CEO Kirsty Bevan says SAGE is one of their member groups that get priority access to the site at low-cost, non-commercial rates, something they want to be able to continue to offer not-for-profit groups in a future site.
In 2023-24 the Joinery hosted 456 events involving 112 organisations.
“I’d really like to see some formal commitment to either a space or some funding to allow us to develop a space into something that allows these groups to continue,” Kirsty says.
“We need early commitments on those particular matters so that we can engage with all the users of this particular current location in order to really facilitate an ongoing continuity of service beyond September.”
Kirsty says in January they hosted a round table with Deputy Premier Susan Close, Lord Mayor Jane Lomax-Smith, Renewal SA CEO Chris Menz and university representatives about the role of the Joinery and creating something similar elsewhere.
She says there’s broad support, but no progress on finding a new site yet.
“Every time I speak to someone, whether it’s Renew Adelaide, Renewal SA, the Deputy Premier, the Lord Mayor, any of the universities, no matter who I talk to, they get very excited about what The Joinery does, or they recall stories of being involved in workshops at The Joinery,” she says.
“And then they’re very excited about the vision for a sustainability hub in the middle of the city, but I don’t know what the blockage is to go from there to actually, here’s some underutilised government buildings that we could open back up to the public that would be a great venue for something of that calibre.”
A Renewal SA spokesperson told InDaily they’ve been working with the Joinery since 2022.
“Renewal SA and the City of Adelaide have been working with The Joinery, following the release of the former Franklin Street Bus Station site for sale via a competitive open market process in May 2022 and the subsequent announcement in 2023 of the state government’s successful bid to develop the site,” the spokesperson says.
“We acknowledge that The Joinery and its communities have expressed a strong desire to remain on the site.
“In January 2025, an agreement was reached to extend The Joinery’s lease until later this year, allowing them additional time to make future arrangements.”
Subscribe for updates
Robert Simms MLC is calling on the Malinauskas government to work with the affected community groups to find a suitable alternative.
Simms says turning the Franklin Street bus station into housing is a “great use of the site” but the government needs to find a suitable alternative for the groups.
“There aren’t actually many community spaces anymore,” Simms says.
“There’s lots of vacant buildings in the CBD at the moment, and so I think really, it’s over to the government to work with the community organisations to try and find a solution.”
Simms introduced the motion to the Legislative Council in October last year to support the Joinery and plans to bring it to a vote in the coming months.
Alternative sites
Drew says key facilities of the Joinery include a kitchen, toilets, multiple workshop spaces, and a garden, and it is a central location that’s accessible by public transport.
Kirsty says the capacity is the main challenge to finding a suitable space in the city.
She says the Torrens building was an alternative that was suggested to the Conservation Council, but it’s currently not open to the public.
“We were really keen about creating some kind of nationally significant sustainability hub and maybe using that site,” she says.
“We’ve not really got a lot of traction inside government of whether or not that is even a possibility, and we have worked with other sort of business leaders within the state to look at opportunities.
“Again, we’re a not for profit, most of the organisations we represent are not for profit, so it is a tricky one to embark upon, but at this point in time, we don’t have necessarily a suitable option.”
A sustainable hub in the city
Kirsty says that finding a new home for The Joinery would also help SA’s bid to host the COP31 climate change conference in Adelaide.
While in Adelaide on Monday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he would make Adelaide the host if Australia’s bid for the conference is successful.
“I think that our existing commitment to sustainability needs to be showcased,” Kirsty says.
“We’re all about innovation, and we’ve got some pretty decent environmental achievements.
“We’re leading the world in renewable electricity and a pioneer of environmental policies, like the ban on single use plastics, I think South Australia is just really uniquely positioned to host a transformational sustainability hub.
“I think it’s the right size for a hub that can sort of share, coordinate and integrate the activities from a whole different group of contributors and I think it’s the basis for Adelaide’s bid to host COP 31 and I think that it will be strengthened by the presence of a really high impact sustainability hub.”