Charles Darwin Uni receives $151 million NAIF loan for new CBD campus
Charles Darwin University has secured a $151.5 million Federal Government loan to build its $430 million campus in the heart of Darwin.
Northern Territory
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CHARLES DARWIN University has secured a $151.5 million Federal Government loan to build its $430 million campus in the heart of Darwin.
Approval of CDU’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) loan came amid a move by Infrastructure Minister Eva Lawler to pull the university’s development application into a public scrutiny process through the Development Consent Authority.
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This means Ms Lawler will have ultimate approval over the development’s approval.
CDU Vice-Chancellor Professor Simon Maddocks said he did not anticipate the construction timeline would be pushed back, despite the NT Government going into caretaker mode in two weeks.
He also revealed the university paid for the $14.6 million Cavenagh St carpark site through the $97 million in Federal Government funding they had been promised via the City Deal.
Northern Australia and Resources Minister Keith Pitt, who was in Darwin yesterday after boarding the first available flight from Brisbane, announced CDU had been granted a $151.5 million NAIF loan that was now “free of all of the other restrictions from the initial announcement”.
“We have got to the point now where the conditions have all been met,” he said.
The project is expected to create 700 jobs during construction - 300 of those on – site and 400 along the supply chain.
Professor Maddocks, who confirmed CDU had notched an $8 million deficit going into the new financial year, said the business case for the CBD campus had “undergone exceptional scrutiny” including a full cost benefit analysis undertaken by Deloitte Access Economics, financial modelling to underpin the business case and independent validation of that by Ernst & Young.
“And finally, over 18 months the due diligence that we had to go through with NAIF,” he said.
Mr Pitt’s announcement of CDU’s NAIF loan approval coincided with news the beleaguered $5 billion Federal Government facility for developing Northern Australia would be extended out to 2026 instead of ending in 2021.
The statutory review of the NAIF is due to be finalised in coming weeks.
Originally published as Charles Darwin Uni receives $151 million NAIF loan for new CBD campus