Our Vision

Lynch’s hub will contribute to the revitalisation and growth of the Newcastle city centre by improving the amenity and accessibility of the foreshore parklands, improving the modal share of transport cycling and providing a much needed family amusement hire option on our foreshore.

Our Mission

We will breathe new life into the iconic Lynch’s Prawns site and transform what is the last remaining blight on our foreshore into a jewel in the crown of a revitalised and vibrant harbour-side.  We will provide terminal infrastructure for cyclists contributing to objectives under the state and local cycling strategies.  At the same time, we will develop a sorely needed family amusement hire option on our foreshore that will reach into the foreshore parklands as they are redeveloped and reconnected to the city centre in order to make a strong contribution to place making efforts.  We will become a recognisable and much loved feature of the Novocastrian streetscape as an important contributor to a vibrant and cosmopolitan atmosphere in our city centre. 

Our Business

Centaur Cycles Pty Ltd. started as a small pedicabing business trading as Rickshaw Revolution.  A pedicab is basically a cycle taxi, a more modern version of a rickshaw or tuk-tuk. We started with a small operation in Newcastle but with a focus on events and marketing work, we were always a little bit different too other pedicabing businesses.

With the focus on marketing and events going well we started to wonder what else we could do with our three-wheeled contraptions.  We began to create a fleet of weird bike thingies that could make coffee, display signage, play music, BBQ snags and freeze icecream.  

At the same time as our little business was changing could see our city changing.  Newcastle is an extremely exciting place right now, the future is bright.  We are particularly excited about efforts to revitalise the foreshore parklands and make them a regional attraction.   

The Opportunity

Against this back drop, we found ourselves continuously asking the same question that thousands of other Novacastrians were asking themselves - What is happening to the old Lynch's Prawns building? How has it been allowed to fall into such a sad state and why isn't anybody doing anything about it?  How can such an important site, a site that has such an important history in our city and a building with such an iconic presence on our foreshore, a strategic site determining the visual and physical linkages between the key urban precincts of Honeysuckle, Civic and the foreshore parklands, how can such an important site be allowed to be vacant, dormant and deteriorating for so long?  

 We decided to do something about it and after a very complicated 12 months or so, ours is the first project in 10 years to break through complex site sensitivities and stake-holder issues at the Lynch's site.  We are now poised to activate this strategic site and contribute in a very strong way to placemaking efforts as the Newcastle foreshore parklands are redeveloped to become the regional attraction that they should be.  

A new life for an iconic site

Our vision is for a shared space that will offer a community cycle workshop providing free advice, terminal infrastructure and access to tools for local transport and touring cyclists. We will also host a tour desk, to be co-operatively managed and operated by a number of small local tour operators. A cycling themed espresso bar will be the key commercial operation at the site which will facilitate the maintenance of a strong community focus in our broader offering. At the same time, we will develop a sorely needed family amusement hire option on the Newcastle foreshore that will make strong, positive contributions to place making efforts as the foreshore parklands are redeveloped and reconnected to the city. What we are creating will contribute in an amazing way to a vibrant and cosmopolitan atmosphere in our city center.

Where do you come in?

Unfortunately, despite the long standing vacancy and increasingly derelict condition of this iconic fixture in Newcastle's foreshore, the property owner will not be forthcoming with any assistance, financial or otherwise to make this site habitable, safe, accessable and useable.  This was unanticipated and it is a very real threat to the project.  The property owner is agreeable to our tenancy and we have secured approval for our development application.  However, if the Lynch's building is to be saved and restored, if the potential of this site to contribute to the amenity of the Newcastle foreshore amenity for visitors and residents alike is to be realised, then we will need your help. 

Our intended site use is very community focussed, it is a social enterprise but it is still a commercial undertaking.  As such we decided that if we were going to crowd fund in order to activate this space then we would only seek to raise the funds associated with saving the building, returning it to a useable state of repair and bringing it into compliance with modern accessibility and safety standards.  Funds raised through this campaign will not be used for fit-out, developing business assets or anything else related to the commercial operations at the site.  What we are asking for is help to save the Lynch's building. The following graph and tables detail the plan for funds raised by this campaign.

*Note: highlighted items have been removed from the fundraising target as they are not strictly and exclusively related to material works required to repair the building and make it accessible.

The special thing about where we are at with this project right now is that we have overcome most of the challenges to the project already... and there were MANY.

Complex site sensitivities and stakeholder issues have torpedoed the last three attempts to develop this site over the period of a decade.  Successfully securing a DA and breaking through such site issues has required an intensive approach to research and planning from initial tendering right through to occupation.  The potential for this site toimpact of this site on public amenity of the Newcastle foreshore ensures that continuous monitoring of this impact and stakeholder engagement will remain important throughout the life of the project.