31/07/2026
Why I'd rather build a new performance venue in Gordon
When Marian Street theatre was first pitched before the pandemic at $6 million, I supported it. With current estimates in the high thirties or low forties, we should revisit the question: where does it make the most sense to provide performance spaces in Ku-ring-gai?
My view is that the money and the site now line up better for a primary venue at Dumaresq Street, Gordon, complemented by smaller spaces in other town centres.
Funding
A new multi-purpose community facility at Dumaresq Street has been in Council's contributions planning since 2010, and sits in a growth precinct generating development contributions from thousands of new dwellings in the Gordon TOD. By law those contributions cannot be redirected to Marian Street. Gordon also carries the potential for residential uplift and a works in kind planning agreement. An investigation into uplift at Marian Street in 2023 found it wasn't viable.
Some asset sales may still be needed at Gordon. The difference is scale. At Marian Street, asset sales are the primary lever, which is why its delivery sits beyond this decade.
What we can build
Marian Street's shell constrains us to roughly 20m by 38m, with a main space of 249 seats and secondary spaces of 63 and 60. No budget changes that footprint. Dumaresq Street is a much larger site that could support bigger audiences, whether that's a school eisteddfod, a community production, or a citizenship ceremony.
Location
Gordon is Ku-ring-gai's main centre, with dozens of places to eat before and after a show. That's not just convenience. Venues in active centres get used, and patronage is what keeps hire rates affordable for the local groups performing in them.
Timing
Dumaresq Street couldn't be explored until the State rezoned the land last year, and between design and securing a development partner I expect delivery next decade. Marian Street isn't faster as it's financially constrained on the same horizon. The DA lapses on 19 August unless works commence, and I wasn't prepared to spend another $100,000 preserving a pre-TOD design that will carry accessibility and compliance problems into the 2030s. Letting it lapse doesn't sell or demolish anything. Council still owns the site and the building stays. Killara's future use will be worked through in Council's Community and Cultural Facilities Strategy later this financial year.
I've been asked why I voted the way I did in June. Here's the resolution and the speech I gave with it.
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NM2 Marian Street Theatre
We move that:
A. Council notes the cost of Marian Street Theatre has risen from $6m (June 2018) to $30.3m (October 2024), with a present-day estimate feasibly reaching the high $30m’s or low $40m’s.
B. Council notes it cannot fund the theatre from rates, borrowings or asset sales this decade. Funding may arise next decade but by then, the current design will likely be non-compliant with building, environmental, accessibility and health standards – making any spend to preserve the current DA redundant.
C. Council notes existing opportunities to support the arts sector through its “Stages and Spaces” program across 10 venues in the LGA.
D. Regarding Theatre, Council continues to explore opportunities for larger and potentially more cost-effective venues at Gordon, Turramurra and Lindfield – each with a broad range of businesses to complement pre- and post-performance activities.
E. As such, Council will not carry out further expenditure solely to preserve or extend DA 0144/20, with future decisions regarding the provision of community space in Killara to be considered as part of Council’s Community and Cultural Facilities Strategy update commencing in 2026/27.
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Cr Ngai Speech
I want to begin not in Killara, but in Penrith.
In 1977, the Penrith Q Theatre turned an old Railway Institute building into a 126-seat thrust-stage theatre, and the community fell in love with it. Over three decades it staged everything from Lock Up Your Daughters to The Sentimental Bloke. Under founder Doreen Warburton OBE — and later directors including Helmut Bakaitis, now best known as the Architect in The Matrix — it brought professional theatre to a community that had never had a company of its own.
But a converted building has its limits. So when the State and Penrith Council expanded the Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre, the Q didn't cling to its four walls — it lobbied to join something better. In 2005 it moved into a purpose-built theatre, and has thrived ever since, now drawing more than 300,000 people a year. Because a beloved theatre is not its building. It is its people — and they can be carried somewhere better.
Closer to home, our own theatre didn't begin as a theatre at all. The Killara Hall Company built a plain hall on Marian Street in 1906; it later became this Council's Soldiers' Memorial Hall, and only in 1965 did Alexander Archdale turn it into a community theatre. It has been deeply loved ever since.
But love does not change the laws of physics, or the building code.
At its peak in 1980, that auditorium seated as many as 400. Apply today's fire-safety, accessibility and comfort standards to the very same four walls, and the proposed renovation now seats just 249. No budget changes the footprint. The Killara site is capacity-constrained, and always will be.
And the budget is the part we cannot look away from. This project has risen from $6 million in 2018 to $30.3 million in 2024 — with today's estimate reaching the high thirties, possibly the low forties. That is five to seven times the original cost, to renovate a 249-seat theatre on a site that can never hold more.
Yes we have spent some money on this project. But that is the worst possible reason to spend thirty or forty million more — especially when we cannot fund this from rates, borrowings or asset sales this decade. And by the time we could, the design will no longer meet building, accessibility and environmental standards. We would be paying today to preserve a DA that is redundant before it is built.
Let me be clear about what this motion does. It does not turn its back on the arts — as this Council already supports ten venues through its Stages and Spaces program. Instead, this motion commits us to explore larger, more affordable, purpose-built options at Gordon, Turramurra and/or Lindfield, and to plan Killara's future properly through our Community and Cultural Facilities Strategy from 2026/27.
And here is why this matters to me. Generations have performed on the Marian Street stage, and God willing more will get to perform.
But we do not honour that loyalty with a theatre we cannot fund this decade — one the building code will outgrow before it opens. We honour it by doing what Penrith did: carrying a much-loved company into a venue built for generations not yet born.
The real choice tonight is not a stage now versus none — it is an unfundable, ageing room versus a future worthy of the people who fill it.
Let's choose the future. I commend the motion.
