Protest over second Festival Tower build as construction kicks off
The Save Festival Plaza Alliance is staging a protest at Parliament House tonight after the state government announced work on a new 38-storey tower is starting.
Hundreds are expected to protest tonight at Parliament House against Festival Tower Two at Festival Plaza after the announcement over the weekend that construction had started on the building.
Over the weekend, Premier Peter Malinauskas and Housing and Urban Development Minister Nick Champion announced that a 54-metre crane had been erected at the site to construct the 38-storey tower.
The Premier said Adelaide’s first skyscraper would be “a transformative development for South Australia”.
A claim disputed by the South Australian Freemasons, who have also publicly announced that the redevelopment of their North Terrace headquarters would be the city’s first skyscraper.
Grassroots Save Festival Plaza Alliance are opposed to the work starting at Festival Plaza, listing concerns such as the encroachment of commercial office space into the open plaza.
Save Festival Plaza Alliance will release an alternative vision for Festival Plaza Plus, proposed to be located on the eastern side of Victoria Square, tomorrow.
“The reason for introducing the Victoria Sq solution into the mix is because, in our view, the Premier needs a solution if there is going to be any change from his current course,” Save Festival Plaza Alliance said in a statement.
“In this regard, the Victoria Sq solution achieves the same practical outcome as at Festival Plaza but also achieves a city-changing outcome on Victoria Sq itself. So, it delivers something of benefit rather than nothing much, as currently planned.”
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Save Festival Plaza Alliance convenor Robert Farnan also sent a list of 20 questions to the Premier in October last year about the tower, but said he had yet to receive an adequate response.
This includes questions about the process and probity, the code amendment process, national heritage impacts, the early construction start, the impacts on the property sector, questions about the lease and the rationale for the development and its viability.
Tonight’s protest will include speeches by Greens’ federal Senator Barbara Pocock, Anglican priest and former Labor Premier Lynn Arnold, Greens MLC Robert Simms and Adelaide City Councillor Keiran Snape.
It comes as Senator Pocock grilled Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt over the project in the Senate’s Environment and Communications Legislation Committee earlier in February. The Save Festival Plaza Alliance has asked Minister Watt to intervene and prevent the development.
Simms said he was protesting because he believes it “is an outrageous misuse of public land”.
“This is a key civic space for the people of Adelaide. It belongs to the whole community, and I’m really appalled that it’s been made available to a developer in this way,” he said.
“I think it’s outrageous and something that should horrify all South Australians.”
Simms said he hopes the government will abandon the tower and “finally see sense”, recognise community displeasure with the project, and fully disclose its arrangement with Walker Corporation.
Asked if he thinks the tower can still be stopped, Simms said he was “an eternal optimist”.
Snape said he was joining tonight’s protest because “seizing Festival Plaza for private commercial use, in my view, goes against Colonel William Light’s vision for the park lands, but also Don Dunstan’s vision for Festival Plaza”.
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“I think there’s an argument to be made that the decision to do this, to commercialise public space, quite literally creates a monument for the commercialisation and corporatisation of our political system.”
Snape believed the tower could still be stopped, saying his state election campaign as an independent for Adelaide was “one of the last-ditch efforts” to prevent the project.
Festival Tower Two was formally announced in March last year following the completion of commercial negotiations, with Sydney-based developer Walker Corporation receiving unconditional commercial approval to proceed with construction in December 2025.
The government expected the construction process to create more than 1,300 South Australian jobs over the next three years and, once complete, will accommodate 5000 office workers, as well as 100 retail and hospitality staff across its lower-level restaurants, cafes and bars.
Construction is expected to be complete in late 2028, and the government has said it would generate more than $1 billion in economic activity each year.
Champion rejected any alternative to building on the site this morning, saying Festival Tower Two “is a transformative development for South Australia and emblematic of the incredible momentum and confidence that we are experiencing as a state”.
“For decades, Festival Plaza was a blight on the city. Now it has been transformed into a well-utilised public realm,” he said.
“There is no scenario in which a building will not be constructed on this site.
“Our government has landed a significantly better outcome than the Liberals’ plan for a three-story retail building that would’ve blocked out the view of parliament from the north.”
Walker Corporation CEO and managing director David Gallant said Festival Tower Two “is a major investment in Adelaide’s long-term economic strength which will complete the original vision to transform this central city square into a vibrant commercial and cultural heart, while respecting and promoting South Australia’s rich heritage”.
“Festival Tower One has been an incredible success story in just under two years of operation, already creating thousands of new jobs and enabling young South Australians to attain high-quality university education in the heart of the CBD,” he said.
“Festival Tower Two will provide the jobs of the future for those graduates and many more South Australians, and that is all down to the vision and ambition of this premier and his government, who have put their trust in our placemaking experience to deliver a tower that matches the scale and ambition of this State.”
In response to the Save Festival Plaza Alliance’s demands, the Premier questioned what the group was hoping to save.
“Let’s just cast your mind back 15 years. ‘What was here?’ We had that Hajek Plaza that was graffiti ridden, filthy, dirty, dangerous and derelict,” he said.
“Now what we’re going to have is high-quality office accommodation, restaurants, cafes and people in the plaza that otherwise they stayed away from, and that’s a good thing for our state”.
