Demolition of old Royal Adelaide Hospital to begin in November ahead of plans to hand back land to Botanic Garden

DEMOLITION of the old Royal Adelaide Hospital will start in November, as a redevelopment begins to hand back land to the Botanic Garden and build a new hotel and private apartments.

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DEMOLITION of the old Royal Adelaide Hospital will start in November, as a redevelopment begins to hand back land to the Botanic Garden and build a new hotel and private apartments.

Housing and Urban Development Minister Stephen Mullighan on Wednesday outlined the latest plans for the site, which is expected to take up to two decades to be completely overhauled.

He said the first contract for demolition work has been awarded, and the buildings in the east wing of the old RAH site would be some of the first to come down later this year.

“This will mean that we can get on with the job of extending the Botanic Garden into the old hospital site, which has been a key piece of how the future development of the existing site will be delivered in the future,” Mr Mullighan said. “This is a huge demolition project.”

The total cost of clearing the site is expected to be more than $150 million, and take two years.

Construction of new buildings on the site, which could include apartments, begins after that.

Work begins to remove signage from the old RAH, which has now closed. Picture: AAP Image/Brenton Edwards.

Mr Mullighan said there were still some health functions to move off the site before demolition could start, and the Government would carefully manage decontamination including asbestos.

He said early work had been done to make an accurate estimate of the demolition cost.

Mr Mullighan said negotiations were ongoing with the selected site developers.

“We are doing this on behalf of taxpayers and on behalf of the state, so we’re pushing them extremely hard,” he said.

“We need not just the best quality development for this site, but the best return to taxpayers. “We’re giving them every opportunity to put a very compelling offer.”

Mr Mullighan said a failure to win agreement with chosen developers Commercial and General and John Holland would result in the Government managing the site overhaul itself.

It would then invite different developers to manage individual sections of the rebuild, he said.

Mr Mullighan said the plans for a hotel and apartments would proceed as announced.

“We know that this development is happening. We know how we will be developing it, what the elements on the site will be, what the configuration of the site will be,” he said.

“It’s just a question of whether we will be partnering with this consortium.”