Plans Filed for $490m Life Sciences Campus at Alexandria

Specialist life sciences developer Kurraba Group has filed plans for a research campus at Alexandria that will “strengthen the global competitiveness of New South Wales”.

The $219-million state significant development application details a facility for a site at 74-108 Botany Road and 86-100 Wyndham Street. 

Kurraba Group has also submitted plans for associated projects including a five-storey office building at 78-82 Wyndham Street at Alexandria—collectively the project will cost $490 million.

The proposals outline plans for the site that include excavation to create two levels of basement with access from Wyndham Street, including allowance for a below-ground Proton Therapy Cancer Treatment Centre.

Two research buildings will house laboratories and patient facilities.

The first, along Botany Road, will be stepped between seven and 11 storeys, with another five-storey building along Wyndham Street.

It would house 850 full-time equivalent jobs once complete and fully occupied, the DA said, while the wider project could accommodate 1700 jobs.

Kurraba said at the time it revealed the plans this year that the campus would drive investment in “advanced medical and health sciences industries, creating a robust platform for local research and development (R&D) to be commercialised in Australia, strengthening sovereign capabilities and ensuring that valuable IP is not ‘lost’ off-shore”.

▲ Concurrent to the main campus buildings, Kurraba will build a $21-million, five-storey office block on Wyndham Street.

The campus is near major hospitals including Royal Prince Alfred, St Vincent’s and Prince of Wales, and universities including the University of Sydney, University of NSW (UNSW), University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and Notre Dame, as well as TAFE NSW.

The site is within the Botany Road Precinct which the City of Sydney rezoned in November, 2022, creating an opportunity to deliver a “vibrant commercial precinct”. 

The rezoning was triggered by the delivery of the Waterloo Metro, which opened in August, on the new Sydenham-to-Chatswood line and opposite the development.

The Botany Road Precinct rezoning is forecast to accommodate an additional 280,000sq m of commercial floor space and up to 14,500 jobs.

The revitalisation of the site by Kurraba “realises the vision for the Botany Road Precinct to attract high quality knowledge-based employment”, according to the development application by Ethos Urban. 

▲ A render of part of the precinct by architect firm Gensler, which won the NSW Government Architects Design Excellence Competition for the project.

It aimed to centralise life sciences and health research expertise in one place, improve community health outcomes by proximity to the latest research and treatment facilities and support the development of the life sciences sector in Australia, it said. 

Kurraba chief executive Nick Smith said he believed it would be a magnet for researchers.

“We’re excited that the project continues to progress through the planning process with the recent lodgement of the SSDA.”

Smith said the lodgement of the State Significant Development Application (SSDA) was a “great milestone” for the Project and the life sciences eco-system.

“Unlike existing hybrid R&D labs, usually co-located in universities, hospitals and independent research institutions, this will be a standalone, purpose-built facility, focused on meeting the growing demands for laboratories, facilities and office space from Australia’s rapidly-growing life sciences sector,” Smith said at the initial launch.

Subject to planning approvals, construction could begin as early as the first quarter of this year.

According to Austrade, Australia’s life science sector has grown by 43 per cent since 2019 with a focus on biotechnology and APAC leadership in vaccines, gene and cell therapies.