SmartHub at Customs House to close as Rockhampton Regional Council makes hard budget cuts

Rockhampton Regional Council made an important decision on the future of SmartHub on Tuesday in a private council meeting. Read about it here.

The Rockhampton region’s entrepreneur centre and coworking facility SmartHub will cease operating by August after council voted to close down the Customs House facility.

Rockhampton Regional Council announced in February it was considering ceasing the Smart Regional Centre Initiative, of which SmartHub is part of, as it needed to come up with extra funds due to funding cuts.

RRC suffered $13.5 million in funding cuts over three years from the Local Government Grants Commission.

According to council budgets, the operation costs for SmartHub was $462,000 for the financial year 21/22, with an income of $146,000.

The decision to close the SmartHub or keep it open needed to be finalised before the end of the financial year, ahead of the 22/23 RRC Budget.

A number of tenants of the coworking space have moved out in the past few months as they sat in limbo over the future of the facility.

The matter was discussed at Tuesday’s scheduled council meeting, in a confidential section that was closed to the public.

This publication requested a comment regarding the result of the meeting and was advised the council table resolved to take no further action with SmartHub and to cease operations on August 5.

“Council had invited submissions for a self-managed operational model but, given no suitable proposals were received, council has today taken this decision,” Communities and Heritage Portfolio Councillor Drew Wickerson said.

“It was not one we did lightly and reflects the current tough financial situation facing Rockhampton Regional Council.”

SmartHub members were notified of the vacate date in an internal email.

Council advised a tender process would now be run separately for a commercial tenant to use the office space on the first floor (top level) of Customs House.

It is unclear who would take up tenancy of the ground level which was retrofitted in 2018 for the coworking office spaces.