A new hub, naturally

COLEMANS HOSPITALITY GROUP HAS STAKED ITS CLAIM ON THE GROWING SUBURB OF PALMERSTON IN DARWIN, WITH THE OPENING OF LANDMARK.

Landmark @ Gateway has been a project three years in the making. Colemans Hospitality Group, known primarily for opening and running the premier Shenannigans pub in Darwin City – which it sold six months ago to Australian Venue Co – decided to switch tacks a few years ago, when the opportunity presented itself to get involved at the ground floor in a new entertainment and leisure complex attached to a new shopping centre in Palmerston.

Called The Pavilions, the entertainment and leisure precinct would feature eight tenancies. Colemans Hospitality Group took the first one.

The public bar is made from Petrified Wood

BOOM CITY

Located twenty minutes east of Darwin City, the Colemans had identified Palmerston as an area with plenty of potential for residential growth. In fact the 2016 census had identified Palmerston as one of the fastest-growing suburbs in the country, with a current population of 58,000. It is expected to rival the population of Darwin City within the next three years. The brothers, who have watched the Palmerston area develop for years, wanted to take advantage of the booming suburb, in the same way they had done with Shennanigans on Mitchell Street twenty years ago.

“There were two motivations, one being the rapid growth of this area with the young demographic, and a high disposable income; and whilst there are other venues in this area, there’s probably not the full entertainment venue that we were looking to build,” explains Justin Coleman.

The beer garden

Having observed that Australians across the country were turning more to local avenues of entertainment rather than commuting to city centres for their nights out, the brothers thought they could see the same behavioural pattern happening in Darwin, with the right kind offering.

“We had noticed from our regular interstate trips the return of the suburban hotel, and people’s willingness to use their disposable income on a good food experience, particularly. So we based our venue on some of the things that we’ve based our previous venues in Adelaide and Darwin City, which is that you mainly start with food and the entertainment follows on from that.”

ONE WITH NATURE

The concept for Landmark has come a long way since it was first envisioned three years ago. The initial plan had been for a simple ground floor, 500 sqm tavern. That idea evolved into what it is now – a sprawling, three story pub (including a basement level) that offers a wide range of entertainment offerings.

Having a 35-year lease, Colemans Hospitality Group wanted to ensure that the venue was one that the population could grow into, rather than having to add additional offerings along the way in a piecemeal fashion. The venue includes a basement-level nightclub offering, that doubles as a sports bar during the day; the ground floor houses a family-friendly dining area closest to the shopping complex, with the main public bar in the middle and a large beer garden and outdoor offering at the other end. The first floor houses the clean and adaptable function space that can be used for a wide variety of events.

The ground floor level is light and airy

For the look of the hotel, the brothers had a very distinct idea to emulate the natural surrounds of Kakadu and Litchfield national parks, both less than 200 km away. They engaged Hutchinson Builders and MODE/ Design Group to help them realise their dream.

“The team helped us realise the dream of what my brother Michael and I had always wanted to do, which was build a venue that was based on the Top End environment, which is a lot of stone, greenery and water, but really focus on the Litchfield/Kakadu environment.”

The concept of the venue as a whole was to feel as if you were moving up and down the different levels of a waterfall as you moved through the different levels of pub.

“The basement mimics what it feels like to swim at the bottom of the gorge, and then as you move up you get that feeling of climbing out of the gorge. And then with the top level the idea is to mimic that feeling of being at the precipice at the top of some of the beautiful rock figurations here in the Territory,” explains Allison Stout, one of two main architects from MODE/ Design Group, who worked on the project.

Using a variety of natural materials in the different spaces to represent the nearby environment, Stout believes the venue gives rise to a whole new aesthetic that is very distinctive to the Northern Territory.

“There’s a term here for when you attend an event at Parliament – in defining the clothing that you wear – called ‘Territory rig’. I would say that it’s that – it’s a contemporary, Territory feel.”

MATERIAL CHOICES

In creating a venue that emulated the natural environment, the biggest challenge was ensuring that the design wasn’t overly kitschy, or present as a themed kind of venue. Stout and her design partner Jade Ah Wang said their simple, streamlined approach to architecture helped to ensure that the concept worked without being too overt. The balance was struck by streamlining ideas and ensuring that the focus was on the types of materials used in each space.

In the basement, which was to evoke the dark rocky bottom of a gorge, lighting was key.

“The basement has two functions – the sports bar through the day, and then the nightclub at night, so it very much needed to be able to blend between those. So housing something that’s quite dark, but then something that’s going to be lit up through the day. That was a very exciting and interesting process. A lot of the time nightclubs are really just designed for those night time events where the lights are dimmed, with low lighting levels,” states Ah Wang.

The outdoor TAB facilities

Dark stone walls, grey timber flooring and dark furniture add to the gorge feel in the space, while the lighting ensures that it does not feel like a dungeon in the middle of the day – more like a shady respite from the harsh sun.

Conversely, the ground floor offerings focus on a light and greenery filled space. The internal areas are filled with lighter coloured furniture and greenery hanging from the walls and ceiling in light-filled spaces. The main public bar front is made using a stone called Petrified Wood – the fossilised remains of trees and other vegetation that have petrified into stone. It is believed to be the first instance of the material being used in a bar in Australia.

The beer garden is a simple space focused around an 8m void and a 5x3m LED big screen. The opening faces the north-west, which is a real problem with the harsh afternoon sun. Stout addressed the problem by making a design feature a functional one that filtered light through the space.

“What we attempted to do was in a way a fit-out orientation and not an actual fixed element of the building. We imagined that as you’re coming out of the gorge you have more greenery, you have more vertical climbing plants and filtered light. How we did that was with that rope screen element that runs round the top surround. At night that then becomes even more of a feature – it’s like the starry sky.”

The basement sports bar/nightclub

The venue is topped off with the first floor function space that has been left as an elegant and simple space that is a blank canvas for any type of function. It includes a large, deep balcony. The functions space was the last design inclusion, one that is already paying off for the venue.

“There weren’t a lot of function and big restaurant spaces in this area. So we saw the opportunity, particularly for the future. We’re not sure how that will go in the early days but signs are good – we’ve taken a number of large function bookings and our first one is tomorrow with 100 people. The bookings are coming in now, so we’re pretty happy that we made that decision to fit-out upstairs and take that on as well,” states Coleman.

SHOP TALK

This is not the first pub venue attached to a shopping centre for Colemans Hospitality Group. In 1998, they opened Shenannigans Adelaide attached to Westfield Marion in Adelaide, which was run by Michael for eight years.

The brothers have learnt many lessons from that experience, including practical matters such as negotiating their lease and tenancy with the joint venture that owns the complex, and how to work with the centre management and the other tenancies in The Pavilions to promote the area uniformly.

“You can’t just rely on being a part of the shopping centre and its traffic flow. You’ve got to be a destination in your own right. We learnt that from Adelaide, where we were probably a bit surprised at how few of the customers of the shopping complex were coming to the venue,” states Coleman.

Knowing this, the group was able to negotiate with centre management to market The Pavilions as a separate precinct, rather than just being a part of the shopping centre. As more tenants come on board towards the end of the year, that marketing will become even more significant.

“We have a common purpose to promote the area, rather than being on a street where it’s a much more competitive environment.”

The gaming room

A NEW DESTINATION

With residents of greater Darwin having regarded Darwin City as the only place to go to for nightlife for quite some time, Colemans Hospitality Group is looking to change this viewpoint with Landmark. It is a big reason for the name – making the pub a landmark that puts Palmerston on the map. According to Ah Wang, a resident of Palmerston herself, the strategy is already working.

“If people wanted to go to a nightclub previously, you had to travel 30 minutes into the city to experience that. There are a lot of other taverns in Palmerston, but nothing that provided all of these spaces where you can dine but also have this great outdoor area with lots of entertainment, looking over the sunset and more.”

Now, residents in surrounding areas are making a point of driving into Palmerston for a mid-week meal or a Sunday afternoon session, much to the delight of Justin Coleman.

“It’s been really good and we’re absolutely rapt with the response and support we’ve been getting from the local community. Having had so long to actually design and plan the space, it’s largely gone as expected and we’re really pleased.”

With such a great response from the community to Landmark, the biggest problem Coleman is dealing with these days is choosing between the multiple beers on tap in the beer garden.