Charlestown Innovation Precinct (ChIP)

Charlestown’s Pearson Street Mall will undergo a high-tech transformation under a draft plan on public exhibition.

The design concept includes new landscaping, free public Wi-Fi, a suite of environmental sensors, and provision for food trucks and markets stalls.

Lake Macquarie City Council Manager Assets Management Helen Plummer said Pearson Street Mall would become a test-bed for new technology and innovation.

“The mall acts as a pedestrian gateway to our City’s largest urban and retail hub,” Ms Plummer said.

“This reimagining of the space will capitalise on that significant potential.”

The Charlestown Innovation Precinct (CHiP) project will also include installation of shade structures and seating.

“With the seating, shade and Wi-Fi, we’re really aiming to make it a place where people will want to stop and stay, rather than just pass through,” Ms Plummer said.

The concept design emerged from extensive community consultation undertaken in 2017, which included ‘ChIPfest’, pop-up information sessions and an online engagement portal.

Public art installations, yet to be commissioned, will also form part of the revamped mall.

“We’ll also be replacing trees in the mall with mature specimens more suited to the local environment and less likely to cause damage related to the subterranean spread of roots,” Ms Plummer said.

“The total project budget is $3 million, which covers all civil works and infrastructure involved in the upgrade.”

Sensors will constantly measure air temperature and quality in the area, with the data sent live to an online interface via Lake Macquarie’s Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN).

“This data will help shed light on how the built environment, traffic and other urban factors affect environmental conditions at a very localised level,” Ms Plummer said.

Pedestrian access will be safer and easier at the mall’s southern end with the intersection with Ridley Street raised to prioritise foot traffic.

Ms Plummer said the revamp would complement extensive work underway by GPT, transforming its north piazza into a bustling food and beverage precinct to be known as The Corner.

Council staff will be on-site 11am-1pm on Thursday 15 August to discuss the Pearson Street Mall draft concept design and take feedback.

The design, including an animated fly-through, is also online for comment at shape.lakemac.com.au/CHIP until Friday 30 August.

Pending feedback, construction is expected to begin in the first half of 2020 and be completed in early 2021.

The city's first dedicated co-working space with super-fast broadband

The Dantia Smart Hub, or DaSH for short, is a modern workspace and professional network hub for businesses and entrepreneurs to connect and grow their initiatives. DaSH is located on Pearson Street Mall, next to the Post Office.

DaSH was the first major initiative of Dantia, the Lake Macquarie Economic Development Company Ltd, a company set up by Lake Macquarie City Council to operate independently as the Economic Development arm of the city's administration sector.

Establishing DaSH was also a key priority of the Lake Mac Smart City, Smart Council Digital Economy Strategy, which recognised the need to cater to growth in flexible jobs and great places for people to meet and connect.

Dantia's mission is to foster connections and accelerate innovation and economic development in the Lake Macquarie region.

Visit www.dashcowork.com to take a virtual tour of DaSH.

Home of the i2N incubator

The i2N Incubator @ DaSH is a 6-month rolling Incubator program, designed to support entrepreneurs and provide a platform for them to start, scale, or strengthen their early-stage businesses.

The i2N is the Integrated Innovation Network, a project delivered in partnership with the University of Newcastle and enabled by the NSW Department of Industry. DaSH was the first operational hub in the i2N - which will eventually include a number of interconnected nodes for innovators in the community. Visit http://www.dashcowork.com/i2N-incubator for more information.

Lake Macquarie City Council is upgrading Charlestown's Pearson Street Mall to create a new and inviting smart space, which will form part of the Charlestown Innovation Precinct (ChIP).

To help the community imagine what this new space could look like in the future, Council is staging ChIPfest, a pop-up event filled with food trucks, technology, live music and more, on Thursday 30 November from 5-8.30pm.

Council’s Acting Manager Asset Management, Brendan Callander, said that Pearson Street Mall will be re-energised and designed to be a more welcoming and connected community space.

“Whether it's free WiFi and on-demand electronic bus timetables or more live events and casual catch-up spaces, we'd love to hear what the community and workers in the area would like to see in this re-imagined part of Charlestown,” Mr Callander said.

Taking cues from the Lake Macquarie Smart City, Smart Council strategy, where the power of technology and ideas are harnessed to improve the lifestyle of our residents, the idea is to develop a pilot precinct where we can test technologies such as ‘plug and play’ outdoor digital kiosks, virtual graffiti walls and live bus maps with real-time timetable updates.

The location of the smart mall will complement the DaSH hub, the nearby co-working space run by Lake Macquarie’s economic development company, Dantia, expanding the culture of start-ups and innovation to the public area outside.

ChIPfest is a free event, and members of the community are encouraged to come along and share their ideas.

You can also take our ‘Tinder tool to Shape Pearson Street Mall’ or use the interactive map to provide feedback.

Dantia Smart Hub (DaSH) at Charlestown has seen a boom in co-working demand in the year since the last Hunter Pitchfest was hosted in its Charlestown space, with the hub taking on another level of office space to accommodate its members’ growing teams and new ideas.

All signs are pointing to headway in the region’s wider startup community too, with industry events like Newy Startups’ i2N Hunter Pitchfest this year making the move to the 110-seat Hoyts Cinema in Charlestown.

Eight of the community's brightest sparks will be selected to showcase their big ideas on the big screen, with only five minutes to convince both the judges and audience as to why their concept is the most creative, viable, scalable and likely to disrupt the market.

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Lake Macquarie’s drive to be a ‘smarter’ City, where the power of technology and ideas are harnessed to improve our residents’ lifestyles, continues to gain momentum.

Council approved funding for another project that will take technology to the streets. We have allocated $2 million in funding to upgrade Pearson Street Mall, in Charlestown, into a ‘smart mall’. The idea is to develop a pilot precinct where we can test the application of technologies such as ‘plug and play’ outdoor digital kiosks, virtual graffiti walls and live bus maps with real-time timetable updates.

The location of the smart mall will complement the DaSH hub, the nearby co-working space run by Lake Macquarie’s economic development company, Dantia, expanding that culture of start-ups and innovation to the public area outside.

Read the full article