Hub celebrates roof topping

A key CBD revitalisation project has reached a milestone with the topping of Mair Street’s GovHub.

Local members of parliament Juliana Addison, Michaela Settle and Jaala Pulford visited the site to celebrate the completion of the buildings timber structure.

Ms Addison said that the project is shaping up to be an important building for Ballarat.

“It’s going to create more than 1000 jobs right here in the heart of Ballarat and most importantly, it’s going to relocate 600 jobs from Melbourne,” she said.

“We know now more than ever that governments need to be focused on job creation and this project is a great example of job creation in the regions and on-going jobs for Ballarat.”

With hopes the GovHub will add life to the CBD, it is set to house workers from government agencies including the Department of Jobs, Department of Education and Training, Department of Justice, VicRoads and Service Victoria.

Additionally, the construction has already provided employment opportunities for suppliers from Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong.

Ms Addison said she and her colleagues were excited to be on site to finalise building.

“We’re really looking forward to the construction being completed at the beginning of 2021,” she said. “This $100 million construction is the third largest timber building in Australia.

“You can see some of the most glorious views of Ballarat from here, it’s going to be an iconic building.”

Development Victoria is set to open an expression of interest for local artists to commission artwork for the ground floor of GovHub.

Member for Buninyong Michaela Settle said the artwork will be a welcome addition to the already historic building.

“What’s really is that we are looking for local artists to design some work that can stand in the foyers to really represents our local area,” she said. “We have lots of historic landmarks and this is a new land mark that we can all be very proud of.”

The GovHub project is a component of the Victorian Government’s $138 million transformation of Mair Street and the surrounding CBD area.

Project manager for Kane Nicholson Joint Venture Peter Spence said although there has been some issues, the project is all systems go.

“We’ve had some challenges with the weather and the wind in Ballarat and of course with COVID practices,” he said. “Today marks the topping out of the timber structure and from this point, we will focus on the façade, the roof and the fit out of the building.”