Former South Australian police academy site at Fort Largs back on the market

JLL’s Roger Klem, who is selling the property with colleague Jed Harley, said the offering was an “incredible development site” that occupied “a significant place in the history of South Australia”. He refused to be drawn on a possible price.

One of the buildings on the site. Photo: JLL

The land could be developed for housing, aged-care facilities or retirement properties, subject to consents, Mr Klem said. It is zoned as residential.

Fort Largs is a few suburbs from the Osborne Naval Shipbuilding Precinct, which is benefiting from the Federal Government’s $50 billion Future Submarine program and the decision to build nine future frigates in Adelaide as part of the nation’s $35 billion shipbuilding program.

Buses service the area and the Taperoo and Draper railway stations are both about one kilometre away.

But the sale of the site at 274 Lady Gowrie Drive is set to be divisive as it includes an historic fort and heritage-listed buildings. A Facebook site called Say No to Selling Fort Largs has nearly 9000 followers – including former police officers. The group has been campaigning for years to have the fort restored and opened to the public.

The large site was one of two forts on the South Australian coast. Photo: JLL

Dave Walsh, convenor of the Say No to selling Fort Largs group, said the decision to sell the fort was gut-wrenching because the previous Labor government had promised – after two years of campaigning – to hand the Fort to the National Trust of South Australia for a heritage tourism attraction.

“We’re very angry,” Mr Walsh said. He doubts any purchaser would be forced to maintain the fort and other heritage items, even though they would required to under the terms of the sale.

“In the last four or five years [the government] has left it to become derelict with trees growing out of the buildings themselves and – at one-time – with squatters occupying,” Mr Walsh said.

“Given that [the government has been] allowed to get away with leaving the fort derelict, [they are] hardly likely to be worried about what a future developer will do,” he said.

The site has been zoned for residential use. Photo: JLL

A spokesperson for South Australia Police – which is responsible for the ground maintenance and security, along with the heritage-listed buildings, until the property is sold – said they provided “security patrols and a monitored alarm service for the heritage-listed parts of the Fort Largs precinct”.

“It is anticipated that the other areas of Fort Largs that are not heritage listed will be demolished under any future development,” the spokesperson said.

Fort Largs was established as a key coastal defence location in the 1880s. The heritage-listed Barracks Building and Drill Hall were added in 1939, and the South Australian Police Academy moved in during the 1960s.

Fort Largs is about 19 kilometres north-west of Adelaide’s CBD. It is one of only two forts built to defend South Australia. The other is 3.5 km further south at Semaphore, which is slightly closer to Adelaide’s CBD.

The former police academy has been vacant since 2012 when the force moved into a $53.4 million development close by.

In 2016 Fort Largs was slated to be transformed into a 250-home estate under a $100 million plan. However, the developer AV Jennings pulled out of the deal in April, blaming drawn-out negotiations that had taken their attention off more timely projects.