Central Park (skyscraper)

Central Park
Central Park Tower
General information
Type	Office tower
Location	152-158 St Georges Tce Perth, Western Australia
Coordinates	31°57′13.2″S 115°51′20.2″E / 31.953667°S 115.855611°E / -31.953667; 115.855611Coordinates: 31°57′13.2″S 115°51′20.2″E / 31.953667°S 115.855611°E / -31.953667; 115.855611
Construction started	1988
Completed	1992
Opening	1992
Cost	A$186.5 million
Height
Antenna spire	249 m (816.9 ft)
Roof	226 m (741.5 ft)
Top floor	205 m (672.6 ft)
Technical details
Floor count	51 (occupied)
Floor area	66,500 m2 (716,000 sq ft)
Lifts/elevators	18
Design and construction
Architect	Forbes & Fitzhardinge
Structural engineer	Bruechle Gilchrist & Evans
Main contractor	Multiplex

Central Park is a 51-storey office tower in Perth, Western Australia. The building measures 226 m (741 ft) from its base at St Georges Terrace to the roof, and 249 m (817 ft) to the tip of its communications mast. Upon its completion in 1992, the tower became the tallest building in Perth. It is also currently the equal seventh tallest building in Australia and the tallest building in the Western half of Australia.

The approval of the tower was controversial due to the plot ratio concessions made by the Perth City Council to the developers. These concessions enabled the developers to construct a tower more than twice the height which would otherwise be allowable on the site. There was also opposition to the Council's decision to ignore its own town planning experts in allowing a large car park to be constructed underneath the site.

The building is formed by a composite steel and concrete frame, with various setbacks in its profile, meaning the upper floors are much smaller in area than lower levels. Outrigger trusses at the top of the building and at the various setbacks help to stiffen the building's reinforced concrete core against the strong winds prevalent in the area. The base of the building features a small park, for which the tower is named.

From as early as the 1930s, the site was home to a Foy & Gibson department store, which was known by the locals as Foy's. The store extended all the way through from St Georges Terrace to Hay Street, featured a popular cafeteria and "had great areas of window display with island windows beyond the street frontage".

The store changed to a David Jones department store upon the purchase by that chain of Foy's Western Australian operations. By the late 1970s, David Jones had withdrawn from the Western Australian market, and the site stood vacant after decades as a landmark of St Georges Terrace. The site was later acquired by Central Park Developments, a joint venture of the Superannuation Board of Western Australia, Bond Corporation and L. R. Connell and Partners, and in 1986 had a value of A$20 million.