Elizabeth Quay: Perth's Waterfront Transformation

Elizabeth Quay, the waterfront inlet development on the South Perth foreshore immediately adjacent to the Perth CBD that was opened in 2016 and that has progressively filled with the hospitality, retail, residential, and hotel development that the inlet's waterfront parcels attract, provides Perth with the activated waterfront that the city's previous relationship with the Swan River, mediated by the freeway and the railway that separated the CBD from the river, did not previously deliver. The development's creation of a new inlet with the water entry from the Swan River and the public foreshore that surrounds it creates the waterfront experience that the restaurants, the bars, the IHG hotel, and the residential towers that have been built around the inlet provide the commercial activation for.

The Perth cultural precinct, including the Bell Tower on the Barrack Street Jetty that houses the historic bells from St Martin-in-the-Fields in London and the Perth Concert Hall and the State Theatre Centre on the CBD's cultural axis, provides the arts and cultural institution cluster that the Elizabeth Quay waterfront development has strengthened as the connection between the CBD's cultural institutions and the waterfront recreation area that the quay development creates. The walking connection between the Elizabeth Quay inlet and the waterfront arts institutions provides the cultural precinct linkage that the waterfront revitalisation has established.

The public art at Elizabeth Quay, including the Spanda sculpture and the indigenous artwork that the Noongar people's cultural contribution to the public art program provides, creates the cultural layer in the public space that the urban design of the quay development has required alongside the commercial development. The integration of the Noongar heritage interpretation at Elizabeth Quay, acknowledging the Whadjuk Noongar's connection to the Derbal Yaragan (Swan River) that the quay has been built on, provides the cultural respect that Perth's waterfront development incorporates as the recognition of the First Nations' relationship to the river country that the development occupies.

The ferry connections from Elizabeth Quay to the South Perth foreshore and to the southern suburbs' river communities provide the water transport that the quay's infrastructure supports and that the Transperth ferry service extends across the Swan River from the quay jetty to the tourist and the commuter destinations. The ferry's role in connecting the cultural and recreational destinations on both sides of the river creates the river-based public transport that Perth's waterfront geography enables and that the ferry service sustains as the water transport alternative to the road and rail connections.

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