Mayor slams negative press as Jetty Road traders bank ‘dream summer’
Business is “booming” on Jetty Road this summer despite its controversial street upgrades. Mayor Amanda Wilson calls out “extremely detrimental and unfair” criticism over the council’s bid to overhaul the popular precinct.
Despite concerns that a recent upgrade of Jetty Road at Glenelg would lead to mass business casualties, one hospitality boss told InDaily he’s been “absolutely flat out” over the summer and the local Mayor claims business is booming.
In mid-December, the City of Holdfast Bay’s $40 million Jetty Road upgrade mostly reopened to traffic following months of construction works and the street being shut to vehicles. The state government has said the tram line to Glenelg, closed for upgrades, was also expected to reopen in January.
After months of uncertainty and hot criticism of the council’s move to upgrade the well-known shopping and dining precinct – including a brutal take down by Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis – trader Mike Papatolis said the past six weeks have been a “dream summer” for businesses.
Papatolis owns and operates the sophisticated Ballet Wine Bar on Jetty Road and, in November, opened Soda Rooftop Bar & Restaurant on Colley Terrace.
He has been “absolutely flat out” across both venues, with the past six weeks feeling like “every day was a Saturday”.
“It’s been a dream run for business,” he said.
“Everyone was out midweek during the work breaks. It was great.”
His main gripe with the upgrade was the loss of car parks saying “I’m not a huge fan of what the council’s done with the mismanagement of the street development, but at least the street is open now and we can get people back out and have a bit more of a positive mindset”.
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But “Ballet wasn’t affected at all”, he said.
“We stayed busy through the whole period. The street shutting, I don’t think it affected many businesses. I think the negativity that you hear is more of a cry for publicity. I know a lot of traders did very well out of the street shutting.”
He said there was a “big misconception” that the Jetty Road development destroyed the economic opportunity in Glenelg.
“They failed to remember that it was the coldest and windiest November that we’ve had, and it was also the algal bloom,” he said.
“Glenelg is known for the beach and people quite often buy bikinis, board shorts, and towels, which aren’t getting bought because people aren’t swimming.
“Everyone’s pretty quick to blame the street development for it and not the fact that there was a bigger crisis happening in the water.”
His new venue, Soda, is a modern Australian restaurant and bar that seats about 200, with a balcony giving patrons 270-degree views of Adelaide, including the hills, the city and all the way down south.
Other businesses have benefited from extra foot traffic in Glenelg, footage of the newly opened bagel shop Morning Bagels shows customers enjoying streetside dining and lines snaking down Jetty Road, as the business enjoys the summer boom.
Holdfast Bay Mayor Amanda Wilson – who contested the southern suburbs seat of Black for the Liberals in the 2024 by-election – said Jetty Road was “absolutely booming” over the past six weeks.
“Huge, huge crowds,” she said.
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“I’ve got traders telling me that they’ve had record-breaking days, and I’m being stopped constantly on the street being told how great it is.”
The comments followed a prolonged period of criticism for the Mayor, who was forced to defend the council’s multimillion-dollar upgrades over the past year.
Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis told 5AA he was concerned that businesses would not survive the works.
“Who’s going to be left?” he said in November.
In a statement on Thursday, the Treasurer told InDaily that it was “a shame that so many businesses had to close during this botched council process – those operators will not have the opportunity to be part of the summer trade”.
“If the council is now saying its redevelopment was conducted successfully, I’d hate to see what they consider a failure,” he said.
“If trade on Jetty Road is sustaining businesses despite ongoing works, that is fantastic. However, it has almost nothing to do with council and everything to do with the hard-working businesses on Jetty Rd and the enduring appeal of the Bay. They succeed despite their council not because of it.
“This is exactly what we warned would happen, and it was entirely preventable.”
Asked about whether criticism from the press and others was unfounded, Wilson said, “I don’t see what other options we had”.
“Jetty Road was so run down,” she said.
“You can only patch things up so much. Would I have done things differently? I don’t know. I don’t know what we could have done differently. We timed it with the tram shutdown, we tried to be as quick as possible, we tried to keep access to the shops open the whole time.”
She said she understood the reaction from locals: “Glenelg is a passionate place”.
“It’s very nostalgic for people. They have really deep feelings for it. That’s great, but what that means is that everybody’s interested in news stories on Glenelg, and it leads to an increase in clicks on it. There was a negative feeding frenzy about Glenelg.
“The traders were doing it tough. They had the combination of the algal bloom, the tram shut down and the street upgrade, but the press was also extremely detrimental and unfair.
“It’s really important that our central showcase coastal tourism destination is at a certain standard. Glenelg deserved better. Now it’s world-class. People who live here have a renewed sense of pride, and I think that’s really important.”
JLL director of strategic research SA, Rick Warner, said Jetty Road was a “proven entity”.
“The short-term pain of these upgrades really is just that,” he said.
“It really was just a moment in time, and it’s not having any long-standing impact on the retail trade and attraction of Jetty Road in general.”
