Iconic North Adelaide landmark and vacant site – the Le Cornu fence comes down

In late December 2017, Adelaide City Council indicated that it would buy the vacant Le Cornu site at North Adelaide – the iconic Adelaide landmark. The Adelaide City Council bought the former Le Cornu furniture showroom site on O'Connell Street in North Adelaide.

The site has been vacant since 1989.

Premier Jay Weatherill said the site was "being taken out of hands of private developers (the Markris Group) and put into the hands of the local community. Through community consultation we will see the site develop in line with what the community wants after so many years of inactivity."

Makris Group's Con Makris said, "Because of a recent opportunity, I have made the decision to work collaboratively with the Adelaide Council to utilise the former Le Cornu site for open space and community use and to relieve the extreme parking issues and pressures in North Adelaide."

The Le Cornu site has come to be regarded as one of the city's worst eyesores and its future has been a longstanding local issue. Development plans for the site have repeatedly been announced and abandoned since the furniture business closed 29 years ago. In 2015, plans were released for the construction of a complex that included a 160-room Sheraton hotel, 131 apartments and office and retail space. But this was abandoned after community pressure.

In 1861 Phillip Joshua Le Cornu established a cabinet making business in Adelaide. In 1885 his business was destroyed by fire. It reopens in a former church in North Adelaide. In 1921 Phillip Joshua Le Cornu died, aged 85, and his business passed into the hands of his son Phillip. The son expanded the business in 1924 as a supply wholesale furniture store, employing 25 people. In 1927 another fire destroyed the factory, but the furniture sales continued. By 1954 Le Cornu began its first direct sales to the public.

In 1967 the company expanded its retail operations in North Adelaide where it installed its famous 40-metre-long window of curved glass, the longest display window in the southern hemisphere at the time. The architecture of the building was iconic – with 18 massive panels of deeply-curved non-reflecting glass. This ensured that customers could easily see the furniture on display.

In 1974 Le Cornu bought the old Chrysler car assembly plant on Anzac Highway at Keswick to expand its operations by building a second store.

In 1989 Le Cornu closed down its North Adelaide store, and Fantastic Holdings bought the store in 2008. Le Cornu closed its Keswick store in 2016.

Since the closure of the North Adelaide store, nothing has been developed on the site for 29 years. Instead, the building was demolished and an iron fence was erected around the unused site.

Cafe Paesano on the North Adelaide Le Cornu site re-established their business across the road in the Village Mall, where it still exists today.

Today, at the Le Cornu site, Adelaide City Council workers were dismantling the boundary fence, laying lawn, and preparing half of the site as a car parking area.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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