On one side, the city is on the cusp of its transition from a suburban city to Sydney’s Central City.
The current transformation of the CBD skyline is impressive, representing a significant part of the $10 billion construction and development underway or in the pipeline over this period.
As a result: “Sydney is talking a lot about Parramatta,” according to the draft City of Parramatta Economic Development Plan 2017 – 2021.
“The story of growth and change has captured people’s attention and interest.
“To unlock the potential of the City of Parramatta and grow the number of jobs locally, a clear roadmap is required to fulfil our potential as Sydney’s Central City,”
“The EDP will assist the city and key stakeholders in leveraging significant private and government investment into the city … with a particular focus on growing and sustaining local employment opportunities.”
On the other side, however, the city has to deal with a range of negative attributes, such as, the disruption to trading in the CBD caused by the number of major development and infrastructure projects.
These projects may make the city feel as though it is “closed and under construction” rather than “open for business”’ thus affecting growth.
Consequently, the draft document proposes a number of activities to manage the “construction disruption”, such as, improved communication, signage, events and “vibrancy” programs to ensure the CBD is still perceived as open for business.
The document says Parramatta – which has half (2.3 million people) of Sydney’s population within 45 minutes of the city – has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to leverage the investment coming into the city to ensure it makes the most out of the region’s economic development.
To capitalise on the opportunities council proposes an ongoing marketing strategy to position Parramatta as a global centre for business and investment, specialising in health, education and finance, to cater to the growing Western Sydney market – an additional one million over the next 20 years.
As a significant employment hub already, council regards Parramatta as the most logical choice for a greater density of jobs due to its strategic location as the geographical heart of Sydney.
“Achieving a jobs growth target of 4000 jobs per year [up from 2000 annually] will be a significant increase, but not unrealistic,” the draft document said.
The document proposes, in part, communicating a “compelling” economic direction to generate this number and bring the total employment to 180,000 in the local government area.
The final City of Parramatta Economic Development Plan 2017 – 2021 is expected to be tabled at council’s August 2017 meeting.
