Minns axes Central Station ‘superdeck’ amid mega cost

Plans for residential towers over Central station have been derailed, with the NSW government shelving the project which was costed at $6 billion.

A multi-billion dollar “superdeck” which was to have been built over Central Station to support multiple residential towers comprising 850 homes has been shelved, and

declared it a costly “thought bubble” by the Minns government.

Announced with great fanfare by the former Coalition government, the ambitious over-the-railyards deck was to have been the core component of “once in a generation” redevelopment of the 24 hectare site.

While the neighbouring redevelopment of the precinct will continue, the giant deck and the towers to have been built on top will no longer occur.

The Saturday Telegraph can reveal the decision to abandon the project followed detailed costings undertaken by the government which revealed taxpayers would be up for almost $6 billion for the deck, of which only half would be able to be recouped from the sale of lots to developers.

The figure also does include the actual construction cost of the residential towers.

Details of the ambitious plans to build towers over railway lines at Central Station. Picture: Supplied

With the former government already spending more than $130 million on planning, the Minns government this week decided to pull the pin on what it described as a “thought bubble”, claiming it was no longer financially viable.

Treasurer Daniel Mookhey said the project would have cost the taxpayers “billions of dollars” while returning “comparatively little new housing”.

An artist’s impression of what the towers and deck would have looked like. Picture: Supplied.

“A multi-billion dollar superdeck with no plan to supercharge housing – it never stacked up,” he said.

“We prefer to spend public money on plans that are viable – not vanity projects with fantasy budgets.

“Instead of wasting more money on a thought bubble, we will get on with the job of planning the schools, hospitals and housing NSW needs.”

Building the super deck would have been an extremely complex engineering challenge,

with significant risks associated with constructing over Australia’s busiest functioning

railway.

The ambitious plan would have run into the billion of dollars. Picture: Supplied

Planning documents show the deck would have linked parts of the city that have been divided since the railway line split Ultimo from Surry Hills.

It is understood Infrastructure NSW – the State’s independent infrastructure assurer – advised the government that the Central Precinct Renewal residential and commercial plan was a “prohibitively expensive way” to deliver additional housing.

On the basis of that advice, the government has abandoned all works relating to the project.

It will be last time a government agency will be allowed to spend such a large amount of money on “planning” for projects that “don’t stack up”.

Under the new business case reforms announced by the Minns government, agencies will not be permitted to spend such large amounts of money on “thought bubble” projects.

The government calculated the same amount of money to have been spent on the superdeck would have funded 36 new schools or 4,500 new government-built homes.

Originally published as Minns axes Central Station ‘superdeck’ amid mega cost