Century-old gum tree doesn't survive enclosing it within Adelaide's Burnside Village shopping centre
The 100-year-old gum tree within the Burnside Village shopping centre revelopment from 2011, with a glass roof (see top tight),and an extra 1,2 metre gap to give it air, Bottom right: The tree in its last throes in 2013.
Including image from ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), Adelaide, by Spence Denny.
A $5 million attempt to enclose a 100-year-old 18 metres tall river red gum within a new $100 million mall at Burnside Village shopping centre in Adelaide’s eastern suburbs failed from the start in 2011.
In 2007, the Cohen Group owners, looking to redevelop the upmarket Burnside Village, had employed Marcus Lodge of Arborman Tree Solutions to assess ways of keeping the river red gum, also legally protected, on the site within the new mall.
A tree protection zone of 11 metres in radius was calculated to be appropriate for keeping the tree. The other part of the design to incorporate the tree was a 21 metres high glass roof with a 1.2 metre gap to give the tree air and an underground deck for fertilising and watering. Marcus Lodge said that “while there were some obvious challenges, these preliminary designs looked very exciting and promised a good result for both the shopping centre and the tree.”
The new Burnside Village mall opened in 2011 and the tree started showing stress immediately, with experts concluding a lack of light, humidity and airconditioning were largely responsible for its decline. University of Western Australia and Murdoch University experts were flown in to do tests on the tree..These included testing light levels at different times of the day and monitoring humidity, temperature and leaf turgidity (water content) over six weeks.
The Cohen Group spent $100,000 on new automated doors to prevent cold air from outside the centre drying out the leaves, $20,000 on a water misting system, ultra violet lighting installed, and the tree injected with nutrients. Removing or replacing the roof above the tree was ruled out.
At a press conference at Burnside Village in August 2013, Pat Cohen, head of the Cohen Group, confirmed the 100-year-old tree could not be saved. It would be chopped down but likely to live on as a sculpture or furniture in the shopping centre: "We've done everything they expected of us all along and it was just not enough."
