The state government leased Fountainside in 2021 for use during the pandemic

The state government is still renting a major Hobart building that was used for Covid quarantine. What is it being used for now?

Fountainside Accommodation in Hobart was used for quarantine during the Covid pandemic. Picture Eddie Safarik

The state government has converted the former Fountainside Covid hotel into accomodation for health workers, as it continues to lease the building from the University of Tasmania.

The former student accommodation building operated as a Covid case management facility from December 2021 to November 2022.

However since the end of Covid isolation requirements the state government has found another use for the building which has 50 ensuite rooms.

“Since that time, Fountainside has been utilised as short-stay residential accommodation for locum and agency staff engaged by the Royal Hobart Hospital," a Health Department spokesman 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. It is also available on standby if required to be used as part of the future response to the Covid-19 pandemic, including use as a Covid-19 isolation facility or the ground floor as a testing facility."

The University of Tasmania's Fountainside building, which is still being rented by the state government

The government has a lease on the building until November.

The total rental cost of the 24-month lease is $840,000.

The spokesman said Fountainside was being well-utilised by health workers.

“The average occupancy of Fountainside for the first six months of 2023 was 29 rooms of the available 50 rooms,” he said.

The state’s other two case management facilities were privately owned hotels the Coach House in Launceston and Wellers Inn Burnie.

Both have reverted to operating as hotels.

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.

A spokesman for the university said there were no defined plans for the site beyond the end of the government lease.

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.