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For more than half a century, Sydney’s oldest tram depot has sat dilapidated in the heart of Newtown, rotting and overrun by vegetation.
The Federation-style depot was built in 1899 and opened the following year to service the new electric tram fleet, signalling a major step for Sydney’s transport network.
When the depot closed in 1957, a veteran tram driver told The Sun-Herald: “You can call this a tram massacre!”
The state heritage-listed sheds are in a prime location beside the railway station, and various proposals to build affordable housing on top or repurpose the site into “Carriageworks 2.0” have been floated over the years, but never realised.
Now there is a fresh push to convert Newtown’s tram depot into a community, cultural or creative hub, inspired by the transformation of the former Rozelle Tram Depot into the Tramsheds.
“People walk past it, sail past it on the train every day, and after 60 years of dereliction they’ve almost stopped seeing it. They become blind spots in the urban environment,” City of Sydney Labor councillor Zann Maxwell said.
As Sydney grapples with the need for more housing and public space for its growing population, scrutiny is on councils and landowners to unlock underutilised land.
“People are less tolerant of wasted – especially publicly owned – spaces. It needs some investment, but we should be getting a lot of public benefit out of this,” Maxwell said.
The state government, which owns the site, will consult the City of Sydney and other stakeholders later this year before finalising a masterplan and business case, slated for completion in the second half of 2027.
About $9 million in remediation works priming the site for conversion are also taking place, and expected to be concluded by late next year. Timing and costs for the revamp would be subject to the future business case, a Transport for NSW spokesperson said.
Deputy Lord Mayor Jess Miller, a member of Lord Mayor Clover Moore’s Independents, said Maxwell’s idea lacked details, and any guidance from the council should come after the state government detailed its vision for the site.
“We don’t know what the scope of work is, and we don’t know when it’s happening. And where is the money coming from?” she asked.
“Once we have a clear idea about what is actually on the table, we can go to the community and offer some kind of input.”
Miller said that heritage and feasibility assessments should be conducted before examining potential use cases, and noted similar venue transformations such as Carriageworks faced “tough financial positions” and were “under pressure, like most arts institutions”.
The council on Monday voted unanimously to make a submission to the government’s masterplan process.
Philip Oldfield, head of the school of built environment at the University of NSW, said the depot’s high ceilings and roof structure lent themselves well to becoming a cultural space or public venue.
“Cities are not museums; they will change. We should envision new ways to make these spaces important for the community again.”
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Cindy Yin is an urban affairs reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.From our partners
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