University of Tasmania unveils high-level concept plan for proposed $500m STEM precinct at Sandy Bay
The University of Tasmania has released high-level concept plans for a proposed $500m redevelopment of its Sandy Bay campus – and it wants federal funding assistance to bring the project to fruition.
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The University of Tasmania has unveiled a high-level concept plan for a $500m science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) precinct at its Sandy Bay campus as part of a bid for federal funding support.
Pivoting from its original plan to relocate STEM facilities to a site on Melville St in the Hobart CBD, UTAS says its new proposal will require an investment of half-a-billion dollars to get off the ground.
The university hopes to sell land at Sandy Bay for housing development and says the proceeds would go towards the STEM precinct.
However, UTAS has acknowledged that external support will be needed to make the project viable and is calling for the major parties to commit funding to the proposal.
Staff were briefed on the concept plan for the precinct on Monday.
UTAS Pro-Vice-Chancellor Campus Life, Professor Nicholas Farrelly, said the project was “critical to Tasmania’s future” and the concept plan had been “shaped by input from staff, students, and stakeholders”.
“[The plan] is for a green, accessible Sandy Bay campus that brings the majority of STEM activities together around a central heart,” he said.
“This is a vital investment in education, science, skills and jobs for Tasmanians and we need support to realise it.
“It was in partnership with all levels of government, with broad support across the political spectrum, that we successfully delivered inspiring, state-of-the-art teaching and research facilities in Burnie and Launceston and together we can do the same for STEM at Sandy Bay.”
The project would be delivered in three stages, with the first $50m phase involving detailed site planning and a retrofit of an existing building to accommodate spaces for information and communication technology, mathematics, physics, and engineering.
The second stage ($300m) would see the development of a major new build with teaching, workshop, and research lab spaces, and the new home of chemistry and earth sciences, while the third stage ($150m) would involve further retrofitting of other buildings to install new facilities for biological sciences, agriculture, geography, planning and spatial sciences, plus a renewed engineering workshop and central science laboratory.
The SaveUTAS group has heavily criticised the university’s plans to sell off land in Sandy Bay for housing and has argued that UTAS could instead offload some of its “extensive” property holdings in the CBD to self-fund the STEM project.
The proposed STEM campus is being positioned as one of four campus sites across Hobart, also including a city campus, a historic campus, and a waterfront campus.
The university’s redevelopment of the old Forestry Tasmania building on Melville St is close to completion and will house the humanities, social sciences, and the Tasmanian School of Business and Economics from Semester 1 in 2026.
Law, pharmacy, and psychological sciences will remain at Sandy Bay.
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Originally published as University of Tasmania unveils high-level concept plan for proposed $500m STEM precinct at Sandy Bay
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