1/11/2022

After some delays to the concept design process, we have recently completed value management workshops and budget realignment process with Woods Bagot, and we are back on track!

The Board have approved a total overall project budget of $50 million. That consists of $40 million for the main hub site and an additional $10 million for the future early years space.

Woods Bagot (the appointed architects )are currently tweaking the concept designs to align to the budget, new site access option and have presented the first re-work of these to our project team.

We are working towards having the revised concept designs and project cost plan approved by the Board end Nov/early December. We look forward to sharing the revised concepts with community in the near future.

Following this, the project will proceed to Town Planning submission to Council in early 2023 and remaining project phases and timeline will be confirmed following this. This includes the detailed design phase where community will be engaged to work through the finer detailed design of the future site.

After many years of negotiation, the City of Greater Geelong council has agreed to sell/transfer the ‘triangle grass site’ near the top carpark of the Co-op, where our future Early Years Centre will be built. However, it is subject to a complex transfer process and the first step is for Council to understand their legal obligations in relation to any contamination/former landfill issues on the site. Council has engaged Tetra Tech Coffey to provide them advice over the next 2 months.

The advice will not include actual soil/contamination testing at this point, however, will help Council to understand the next steps and requirements for testing/reports to be completed during the sale/transfer of land process. Community will be kept informed of this process.

While the process of securing the site continues, the Early Years and Strategic Policy Teams are working through a series of visioning workshops and site visits to determine the operating model for the future Early Years Centre. Following these processes, we will look at the infrastructure design in the new year.

The team have also been working on developing a funding prospectus document that will be the key driver in raising the funds required to achieve the project! We will share this with community and hope that you can all support us in spreading the word.

The images shown are updated draft concepts as of October 2022. These are concept images only and final designs will be shared with community when available.