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Ballarat GovHub promotes timber use

The successful use of timber in the construction of the $100 million Ballarat GovHub will see the Victorian State Government preference timber in the future Bendigo GovHub. Speaking at the 2019 Timber Offsite Construction conference in Melbourne Neil Anderson, the group head Property Development Victoria, said that with the Ballarat project the tender had specified concrete or timber. Source: Timberbiz

But he said from the lessons learned at Ballarat, timber would be the first preference now for Bendigo.

“That’s our preference,” Mr Anderson said. “We’d love to do a timber building and that’s where we’ve started.

“We’ll cross-check it (with concrete) but that’s our preference from the beginning,” he said.

The Bendigo GovHub will place more workers in central Bendigo and help centralise the delivery of a range of government services and revitalise the northern-end of the city.

The City of Greater Bendigo and a range of Victorian Government departments and agencies will be co-located in the new building, making it home for up to 1000 employees, including 100 new positions, 20 of which have already been allocated following the announcement the Victorian Labour Hire Licensing Authority will be set up in Bendigo in 2019.

The development of Bendigo GovHub will inject around $90 million into the regional economy and create numerous construction jobs over the course of the build.

Work is expected to begin next year and be completed by 2022.