This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
THE University of Tasmania (UTAS) is looking to offload another key Hobart asset, this time the former K&D hardware site on a 1.3-hectare CBD block that it bought for student accommodation, before changing tack and developing a popular basketball centre that will now need to find a new home.
UTAS paid $30 million in 2019 for the site, which runs along Bathurst Street and will be put on the market in the coming months alongside the 65 Argyle Street property. Proceeds will go towards the ongoing redevelopment of the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies facilities at Taroona, and the soon-to-be-kicked-off research facility for the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture at Newnham.
UTAS is harbouring ambitions to develop four campuses, which include a STEM campus at Sandy Bay, a city campus at the Forestry Building, Historic Campus at the university’s original home on the Domain and the waterfront campus across Salamanca and Taroona.
The basketball centre is operated as Swisherr. UTAS had intended for the site to be used for student accommodation, before COVID struck and students went back home during the pandemic, with numbers unlikely to return to previous highs – particularly with the federal government’s decision to cap foreign student numbers as the housing market buckled further under the extra demand.
UTAS in recent months banked nearly $42 million from the sale of two Hobart assets. Prolific Singaporean investor and developer Fragrance Group added to its Apple Isle portfolio with its purchase of the Midcity Hotel at 96 Bathurst Street, while the Tasmanian government picked up the Fountainside Hotel, planning to use the 50-room hotel as accommodation for essential healthcare workers from the Royal Hobart Hospital.
UTAS had picked up the assets from $23.5 million in 2018 and for $18.76 million in 2019 respectively. Both were deemed surplus to needs.
