The Health Department took over Fountainside in 2021 as a Covid quarantine site

The Health Department has extended its lease on the University of Tasmania Fountainside building in Hobart. Find out how much they are paying.

The Fountainside building continues to be used as temporary housing for Royal Hobart Hospital staff. Picture: Chris Kidd

The University of Tasmania’s Fountainside building will be used for hospital staff accommodation until at least the end of November, at a cost of $48,000 a month for the Health Department.

The state government took the building off the University’s hands in December 2021 for use as a Covid case management facility.

When Covid isolation requirements ceased, the Brooker Hwy site was converted into temporary accommodation for Royal Hobart Hospital staff.

A Department of Health spokesman said the building, which has 50 ensuite rooms, would continue to be used for this purpose.

“The Fountainside building is being utilised as residential accommodation for locum and staff engaged by the Royal Hobart Hospital,” he said.

“This includes providing temporary accommodation for new recruits from interstate and overseas, agency nurses, rotating medical registrars, locums, paramedics, senior clinical staff and other short-term contracted staff.

“The Department of Health has a 12-month lease until the end of November 2024 at a cost of $580,000. Of the 50 available rooms at the Fountainside facility, an average of 80 to 90 per cent are utilised at any given time.”

The University of Tasmania Fountainside building was used as a Covid quarantine facility. Picture Eddie Safarik

The new lease comes with a rent hike by the University of more than $160,000.

The previous lease cost the government $840,000 for two years, or $420,000 a year.

The University remains tight lipped on any long-term plans for the building beyond the Health Department’s lease.

A University spokesman said there was no update at this stage on the building’s future.

The University purchased the former Fountainside budget hotel in 2018 for $18m as part of its wider buy-up of CBD properties.

It was intended to fill an undersupply of student accommodation at the time.

However the significant drop in overseas students caused by the pandemic meant the university ended up with excess rooms.

Another hotel purchased by the university for students, the Midcity on Bathurst and Elizabeth streets, is again a hotel.

In late 2021 the Vision Hotels group signed a five year lease on the building.