Ballarat City Council to commit $850k for Civic Hall site design

By Kim Quinlan
Updated November 2 2012 - 2:04pm, first published May 18 2010 - 3:03pm
Civic Hall
Civic Hall

REDEVELOPMENT of the controversial Civic Hall site has moved to the design phase, after the allocation of funds in the City of Ballarat draft budget.A model and design of the Mair Street site will be devised after $850,000 was earmarked for the project.The plan is to design a new building to accommodate the council's administration staff, who will be relocated from current sites, as well as finding potential co-tenants for the building.A report on the design and development stage is expected to be presented to council in coming weeks.City of Ballarat chief executive officer Anthony Schinck said the next phase of the Civic Hall plan was a commercial exercise on developing a model and design for the site."The $850,000 is for the next step in the Civic Hall project, which is design and development, obtaining permits and more formally developing other options on the site," Mr Schinck said.The design and development phase is expected to take up to six months. Funds allocated to the Civic Hall are part of the $5.8 million in the budget for stage one of the CBD Strategy.At a council meeting in December last year, councillors voted to move the city's administration to the Mair Street site, with other government departments, community agencies and commercial operators sought as potential co-tenants.A council officer's report at the time stated the council needed more space than was available at its three present sites, and that there was enough interest from other groups in high-end office space to move to the Civic Hall site.In November it was recommended to council that detailed options for a new building on the Civic Hall site be investigated. At the time, options included structures of up to four storeys built to the street edge.The council's CBD draft plan suggested larger buildings of up to six storeys could be added in the centre of the site, and even an element of up to 10 storeys to create a new city skyline feature.The Civic Hall was closed in 2002 and little has been done with the iconic site since.Last week The Courier revealed homeless people had accessed the boarded-up building and been living there for several months.At the time, City of Ballarat director of people and communities, Carolyn Barrie, said the council was unaware of squatters at the building.

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