If you’ve lived in Darwin long enough you’ll have fond memories in one form or another of the Esplanade. Whether it be taking your kids down to the play equipment, eating a yiros at the Glenti, commemorating the Australian war efforts at the Cenotaph, or for the generations before me, enjoying a swim down at the Lameroo baths before it was destroyed by Cyclone Tracey in 1974 and never rebuilt. For the Larrakia, there are sites of cultural significance located here.

But for some time the Esplanade has become a forgotten part of the outdoors lifestyle that brought many of us to the Territory. As a kid I remember hearing stories of people peacefully sleeping off the effects of a big night on the grass in front of the old Beaufort Hotel, something you wouldn’t dream of doing now.

The Esplanade in its current iteration idles along as a void of unfulfilled potential not fit for the supposed ‘Gateway to Asia’ and certainly not for Australia’s northernmost capital city. Not to mention Darwin itself is a poor impersonation of a modern tropical city; with its boarded-up shop fronts, empty mall and embarrassing attempts at cooling and greening the city, Darwin is a shell of the once vibrant place I grew up loving.

The addition of the Waterfront Precinct did bring some economic life to the place but in some respects just added lipstick to a pig. It brought another dimension to the city but didn’t do much to help the central business district. Perhaps that wasn’t the intention, or perhaps addressing the city problem is just too hard with little political benefit to be gained.

The recent advent of Sweethearts and Flick’s under the Cinema Collective banner has given new life to the old Darwin cinema complex where Duck’s Nuts used to be, and Einstein’s Arcade and Sizzler even before that. I take my hat off to the developers for doing what few of us are prepared to do at the moment - invest in Darwin. The Flick’s offering of al fresco dining where you can eat market stall-inspired small plates is a logical mix of European tapas-style dining with a relaxed troppo environment reminiscent of the old Hotel Darwin’s Green Room - they get it.

But whilst important, it’s going to take more than the honourable yet sporadic efforts of a few isolated developers to breathe life back into the city. And Darwin is where good ideas go to die. Dare I mention the ill-fated Rorkes that was redeveloped in the mid-2010s at the old Commonwealth bank building, with its promise of beer taps on every table that you could pay for using your credit card. How good. Well that novelty lasted about five minutes, as the beer was expensive and seemed to lack the social gratification you get from chatting with a bartender or waiter when out on the town. They didn’t understand the Darwin market and paid the price for it - literally. It must have cost a fortune to put all those beautiful brass taps and fittings into the building, not to mention keeping all those beer lines clean and cold. Let’s hope the ‘duelling pianos’ at Sweetheart’s don’t go the same way.

There have been a number of murders at the Esplanade over the past couple of decades and it has become a point of nuisance for police with public drunkenness and violence rife. In the last 12 months a murder horrifically ended in the lobby of a luxury hotel as well as numerous assaults and instances of domestic violence common.

The newly elected CLP government has a mandate to address these social problems which have been plaguing the NT for some time and have begun implementing their anti-crime legislative agenda, but it probably won’t be years until we know if the policies are effective. They must be careful not to neglect the economy whilst getting crime under control.

City of Darwin Lord Mayor Kon Vatskalis to his credit has attempted to reinvigorate the city by releasing a ‘Strategic Projects Prospectus’ in 2019/20. And whilst this prospectus had the right idea, it was centred around projects such as the Casuarina Pool redevelopment which has now recently been completed, and other low-hanging fruit ideas that lacked a transformative vision befitting a modern city. Most of the other projects have seemingly gone nowhere, however given the timing of the COVID-19 pandemic this can be forgiven. But now, the pandemic is all but gone and the sorry state of Darwin City still remains.

The Esplanade should be a buzzing hive of activity, with its tropical greenery and relaxed lifestyle elements incorporated into a contemporised precinct of shopping, tourism and outdoor leisure activities. It should be the jewel in the Crown of Darwin City, reminiscent of the Cairns Esplanade with its lagoon, skatepark and outdoor amenity. Instead, it’s the stagnant border of a tired frontier-town that time forgot with ageing infrastructure. There’s not even a designated area where you can let your dog off the leash along the Esplanade.

Which brings us to the modern state of play. In April 2023, the former Labor Government’s Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Chansey Paech, provisionally declared the entirety of the Esplanade to be a heritage place. Under the Northern Territory Heritage Act, a provisional heritage declaration is an initial, temporary measure used to protect a place or object that may have heritage significance while its formal heritage status is being evaluated.

This declaration allows the NT Heritage Council to provide interim protection to potential heritage sites or objects, preventing any alterations or potential damage during the assessment period. This has huge implications for the future use and development of the Esplanade, as if it is ultimately determined to be a heritage place it will add yet another layer of government bureaucracy on top of a developmentally bereft jurisdiction stuck in a regulatory quagmire.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a place for heritage values to be maintained and where necessary, held as sacred. But provisionally declaring such a large area to be sacrosanct when it impacts such a vast cross-section of the community reeks of government overreach and pandering to special interest groups.

This provisional heritage declaration is viewed as anti-development by not only the Property Council of the NT which submitted a formal objection to the proposal, but the City of Darwin itself and is now locked into a legal battle over its validity, which as previously stated would place any future development decisions of the Esplanade in the hands of a few. Getting updates from state or local governments on the matter have been difficult due to legal restraints

I’ve had conversations with Darwin families that have walked capital out of the Territory, particularly Darwin City due to it no longer being a destination for investment. These are high net-worth prominent families that pay the payroll and property taxes the Territory tax base can ill afford to lose whilst our debt climbs ever higher.

The newly elected CLP government has an opportunity to show leadership and vision by doing whatever it can in its power to seek terms with local government and resolving this issue. Doing so would demonstrate that the Territory has turned a corner and is pro-development once again.

The potential of the Esplanade and Darwin City as a whole should not be understated. It could incorporate Airlie Beach’s lagoon precinct with Atlantic City’s boardwalk, or Portafino’s dockside dining and shopping culture with Malaysia’s Kota Kinabalu-style waterfront precinct. All of this is achievable, but it requires governance with vision. Who will be our Lee Quan Yew?

Over the next month or so, NextGen North will be inviting guests onto the podcast from a variety of perspectives to discuss the potential of the Esplanade, whether it be to completely reshape it as we know it, leave it as it is or finding suitable middle ground. Tune in to find out more.