Bankstown Central – Rethinking the way we ‘work, live and play’

With the world’s perception shifting on how we work, where we work and how we live there has been an active drive for asset owners to rethink how they adapt their assets to work for current and future end-users. With the current crisis looking to be around for some time, many have taken the opportunity to rethink their building assets outside of our cities and are responding to longer term preferences for people to stay locally to work, live and play.

Vicinity Centres in NSW recently shared their exciting plans to transform Bankstown Central into a vibrant mixed-use community that could emerge as a major new health and education innovation precinct for Western Sydney, following the word-class precedent set at Westmead where a health and knowledge district has been created.

Recently on public exhibition, the first stage of the masterplan includes the development of three state-of-the-art commercial office buildings located on a retail podium, in addition to a large public plaza and all-new ‘Eat Street’, providing a new meeting and dining area for the whole community.

Embedded in Vicinity’s vision for a sustainable development, the new $1.3B mixed-use precinct will be designed to target key sustainability certifications. These include a 5 Star NABERS Energy and 4.5 Star NABERS Water Base Building rating, a 5 Star Green Star Design & As-Built Certification, and an aspiration of targeting a WELL Standard Gold Certification.

Through innovative, environmentally sustainable design a healthy and active environment will be created for occupants whilst minimising any negative environmental impacts associated with its design, construction, and ongoing operation.

Early in the design, ADP’s holistic approach to services, sustainability, and site infrastructure have identified the key infrastructure challenges. De-risking the project early and providing cost certainty has enabled innovative solutions to be embedded from the concept stage, including a high-efficiency central plant, new chamber substation, and flexible F&B provisions to deliver a vibrant new Eat Street food precinct.

“Leveraging ADP’s experience across multiple sectors has been key for us on this project. Their teams’ experience with shopping centres, mixed-use precincts, commercial offices, authority infrastructure, and sustainable ratings them to promote innovative ideas in each discipline and then to use their cross-disciplinary teams to quickly review, coordinate, and fine-tune the outcomes” says Vicinity’s National Head of Design, David Waldren. “The revitalisation of Bankstown CBD is a very exciting project to be part of as it is very much designed with the community at its core” added ADP Director Gavin White.

Bankstown Central will be the start of Vicinity Centre’s 30-year vision to provide a hub for up to 8,400 workers, 3,500 residents and 1,800 students to the western suburbs of Sydney.