An engineering report Newcastle council used to justify demolishing the Mall parking station says the building could have been repaired for less than it eventually cost to knock down.
City of Newcastle closed the King Street car park in 2020 then demolished it in 2021 "due to its poor structural condition and significant costs to make the building safe, compliant and operational".
The council, with the unanimous support of the then elected councillors, entered into a $3.7 million contract with a demolition firm to level the 60-year-old structure.
The Newcastle Herald reported in February 2022 that the demolition costs had ballooned to an estimated $6.97 million after workers found asbestos in the subsoil.
The structural engineering report on which the demolition decision was based estimated the council would have to spend $1.1 million on repair works to allow the car park to reopen to the public.
The Northrop report said more extensive works to shore up the building for another 25 years and bring it up to code would cost $5 million, $3.9 million on top of the urgent repairs, and the car park would need "substantial ongoing maintenance".
This cost estimate was based on a 2017 figure from quantity surveyors Rider Levett Bucknall which would have translated to about $5.8 million in 2021, according to the Cordell Construction Cost Index.
The engineering report said the car park was shedding concrete onto the surrounding streets, creating a public safety risk which needed to be addressed.
But the report said most of the building was structurally sound.
"Generally, the majority of the building elements were assessed to have sufficient structural capacity to comply with the requirements of current relevant Australian Standards for the building as it exists today and for its current use as a car park," the report said.
The report said demolishing the car park would cost about $4.5 million.
Council chief executive Jeremy Bath said in September 2020 that the car park had a "structural issue" and he was waiting on a second cost estimate to repair it.
"It's nothing we can't spend money to fix, but whenever there's a sizeable amount of money involved in the repair of an asset ... you've got to make a decision on whether it's better to knock it down and build again," he said.
A council spokesperson said on Friday that demolishing the car park had been the "right decision as it was simply not viable to repair or restore the old, unsafe building".
The council promised in late 2020 to reinstate the 380 public parking spots and endorsed Mr Bath to start negotiating with Iris Capital on a commercial arrangement to integrate the lost parking and the site into the company's surrounding EastEnd development along with a "Stairway to Heaven".
The "grand staircase" would rise from the harbour to Christ Church Cathedral, cutting through the Iris-owned development site and the car park land.
A report to councillors on June 29, 2021, said the council had "authorised" a feasibility analysis which had found City of Newcastle would "obtain better value for the land with the car park in a demolished state".
Iris rejected the council's overtures to take on the public parking but modified its EastEnd plans to preserve an open corridor from harbour to cathedral.
Three years later, the car park site remains empty.
The council said on Friday that it planned to call for expressions of interest early next year in redeveloping the car park site and it remained committed to reinstating the parking spaces.
"As with all major developments, planning for redevelopment of the former Mall Car Park site will take time and will involve community engagement and detailed investigations and approvals," the council spokesperson said.
A new car park with the promised 380 spaces will cost an estimated $10 million to $20 million to build and, in the meantime, the council is losing the revenue it would have received had the parking garage been reopened.
If the council does not rebuild the car park itself, it will need to find a developer who will incorporate the 380 spaces into a building which must stay low enough to preserve views of the cathedral and, possibly, accommodate the stairway.
In May, the Hunter Central Coast Regional Planning Panel rejected Iris's reworked EastEnd plans after they drew an outcry from residents groups, the Newcastle Club, Anglican Dean Katherine Bowyer and the National Trust over view, parking and heritage impacts.
Iris has applied for a review of the planning panel's decision.
The company said in May that the refusal could leave Newcastle's city centre with "a hoarded-up hole in the ground for years to come".
Iris had been relying on a reinstated council car park to help make up a deficit of 113 parking spaces in its development, and the planning panel noted a "parking deficiency" in its decision.
A report to councillors in December 2020 said Iris's conditions of consent for the first two stages of the EastEnd project included a requirement for "75 per cent of residential visitor parking spaces to be accommodated by the Mall Car Park and on-street parking".
"With the Mall Car Park no longer available, it is incumbent on both CN and Iris Capital to ensure existing and future car parking requirements associated with the East End Development are met, along with public car parking capacity for Newcastle Central Business District," the report said.
An engineering consulting company working for Iris wrote to the council in August last year accusing it of being "evasive" about its plans to replace the car park.
The council spokesperson said on Friday that the planning panel decision had put the Stairway to Heaven in doubt.
"Preliminary analysis demonstrates there are a range of viable options for consideration by City of Newcastle to redevelop the former Mall Car Park site to provide a range of high-quality, mixed uses that combine housing, commercial spaces (retail and office) and community spaces while maintaining public car parking and providing superior public domain that realises the vision of the Harbour to Cathedral concept," the spokesperson said.
"That concept, however, is now at significant risk following the recent refusal of the Iris Stage 3 & 4 DA by the Hunter and Central Coast Regional Planning Panel.
"The panel's decision means the original 2018 concept approval for the Iris site stands, resulting in a building located in and blocking the iconic view corridor."
The Herald reported last month that developer DOMA Group was poised to permanently close its 678-space Store car park to begin work on two apartment towers on the Newcastle West site.
Independent councillor John Church, who was on the council when it decided to demolish the Mall car park, said subsequent events were "cause to pause and reflect on whether the right decision was made".
He said he supported the Stairway to Heaven concept, but the car park demolition had left the city "worse off" with fewer parking spaces and a stalled major development.
He said the council had "zero plan and zero budget" to reinstate the lost car spaces in a city which was experiencing a parking "crisis".
Greens representative John Mackenzie said the councillors had not taken the car park demolition decision lightly but had been concerned about the public safety issues raised by council staff.
