Office Stairs

Sunlight cuts across the worn timber treads of the office stairs inside the former Sundell Holden workshop on Smith Street, Chatswood. Paint has peeled from the walls in long strips, curling back to expose the layers beneath. Dust coats every horizontal surface. There is nothing left on these stairs to suggest purpose, only the physical evidence of a building that stopped being used and then slowly began coming apart. The Smith Street building was the workshop and service centre for Sundell Motors Pty Ltd, the company registered with ASIC on 5 January 1967 under ACN 000 560 770. The business operated as an authorised Holden dealer, assigned dealer code 610 for Chatswood by General Motors Holden. The Pacific Highway showroom handled vehicle sales; Smith Street was where the mechanical and service work happened. By 2015, when this photograph was made, the building was already vacant. Layers of street art had begun accumulating on its exterior walls, the building entering a second life as an informal canvas between its commercial closure and eventual demolition. Inside, the decay was quieter: peeling paint, settling dust, light moving through empty rooms. The franchise that gave Sundell Motors its commercial identity ended on 17 February 2020, when General Motors announced the withdrawal of the Holden brand from Australia and New Zealand. The Holden brand ceased trading entirely on 31 December 2020. Sundell was one of 185 Holden dealers operating across the country at the time of the announcement. Willoughby City Council approved DA-2017/182 in March 2021 for a five-storey Woolworths development on the Smith Street site. The former workshop was demolished around that time. Woolworths Chatswood East opened on 26 October 2022. These stairs no longer exist. This photograph is what remains of them.