| | |
From a patch of scrubland in the fastest-growing region of Australia -- South East Queensland – a model privately-owned holistic city of the future is rising in testament to the extraordinary vision and tenacity of two remarkable men |  |
Statistics
- Name: Springfield Land Corporation
- Country: Australia
- Est: 1992
- Employees: 100
- Revenue: $AU15 billion by completion of Greater Springfield Website: www.greaterspringfield.com.au
Management
- Executive General Manager, Planning and Infrastructure: Russell Luhrs
In 1992, two men found 2860 hectares of scrubby bushland for sale just 23 kilometres west of Brisbane's CBD and conceived an ambitious vision to create a world-class self-sufficient city on the site. Maha Sinnathamby and Bob Sharpless borrowed money from a friend to put down a deposit on the land and the dream to create the city of Greater Springfield was underway.
Eighteen years later, the dream has become reality and, by completion in 2030, Greater Springfield will be home to a population of 105,000 people living, working, learning and playing in one of Australia's most liveable and innovative cities. Earlier this year, the development's holistic and carefully thought-out masterplan saw Greater Springfield receive the prestigious National President's Award from the Urban Development Institute of Australia.
A HOLISTIC PLACE TO LIVE, WORK, LEARN AND PLAY
"Our vision is to deliver the largest project of its kind in Australia by a privately-owned entity," says Russell Luhrs, Executive General Manager, Planning and Infrastructure for the Springfield Land Corporation. "Greater Springfield is a place where people can live, work, learn and play, all in a healthy, sustainable environment with great access to technology. Over 36 per cent of the land holding is designated open space, with a formal urban park in the centre of the CBD with wireless connectivity, extensive walking and cycling tracks, 14 international standard football fields, a Greg Norman-designed golf course, lakes and a 10,000 capacity stadium."
Greater Springfield will be a fully digitally connected city with its own telco, Dark Fibre communications network and state-of-the-art $A212 million Polaris Data Centre – the most advanced purpose-built data storage facility in Australia, designed to provide secure data storage for large corporations and the Queensland government.
Around the central CBD, a premier business address within an easy drive of both Brisbane and the Gold Coast, there will be six suburbs with different levels of housing, from entry-level housing for first home buyers to luxury homes and apartments, comprehensive health and education facilities, aged care facilities, retail and entertainment precincts, a technology park and a bulky goods and warehousing precinct.
The residential communities are master-planned in a joint venture with Delfin Lendlease, with other partners including Mirvac and Australand. Approval has been gained for 46,000 dwellings, of which 6500 have been built to date.
SUPERIOR HEALTHCARE AND EDUCATION FACILITIES
The 55 hectare health precinct includes a hospital, teaching facilities, a range of health care providers and a medi-hotel for patient recovery. The hospital is also digitally enabled so doctors can operate on patients remotely.
The 18 hectare education precinct covers learning as a life-long process – from child care centres and kindergartens to schools, technical colleges, universities and education facilities for the elderly.
"We are now positioned for exponential growth," says Luhrs. "We have the building blocks and key enabling infrastructure in place, a population of around 20,000 and around 6000 jobs within the city. We have delivered substantial infrastructure including roads, lakes, sewers, reservoirs and schools and there is $A650 million worth of build going on at any one time. What we need now is for the Queensland government to complete the rail link between Brisbane and Greater Springfield by 2012."
ATTRACTING BUSINESSES AND JOBS
With Springfield Tower, a $A60 million 10-story commercial building, completed, the focus now is on attracting businesses from major cities around the world to Springfield's 390 hectare central business district.
"The CBD can accommodate 2.5 million square metres of commercial and retail activities," says Luhrs. "We're promoting decentralisation of the workforce and aim to become a key regional employment centre, with one job for every three residents. We offer companies purpose-built business premises in A grade, sustainable office buildings with superior technology support and affordable housing and education for company staff at a fraction of the price of premises in Brisbane."
Companies who have noted the advantages and made the move include NEC (Japan), Veolia (France) and Dhanush (India).
IN FOR THE LONG HAUL
Being privately owned gives Greater Springfield a different risk profile than other similar developments. "We are not about short-term returns to get dividends for shareholders," says Luhrs. "We're in for the long-haul over 30 to 40 years. We do a lot of things that are loss-leading. For example, we are subsidising the Education City precinct until we get to 6,500 students but this allows us to provide the education people need.We have also subsidised the $A145 million Brookwater Golf Club but it attracts 36,000 players a year, who then get exposed to Springfield.
"For every lot we sell we give a percentage to the state government to build schools, the fire station, the police station, etc, and we donate the land. We do a lot more than other developers, but we see it as a good investment for us. We have unique legislation in place that mandates the developer is in control of all planning, with no third party objection rights. This means that people who move to Greater Springfield know exactly what's happening over the next 30 years."
Springfield Land Corporation has also built a good relationship with the local Ipswich City Council, the local government body for the region, and is contributing significantly to improvements in what is a relatively economically and socially depressed area. With Greater Springfield only 15 per cent completed, it already generates 13 per cent of rates revenue for the Council and by 2030 will generate 36 per cent of the rate revenue base for the City of Ipswich. "Our success is critical to their success," says Luhrs.
"We benchmark Springfield annually against similar international projects," says Luhrs, "including The Woodlands in Texas and Reston in Washington in the US and Milton Keynes in the UK. We look at these projects and learn from them but nothing we've seen is as holistic as Springfield. One might have good residential and education, for instance, but limited healthcare, job generation and technology. Once people move here they never need to leave!"
No comments:
Post a Comment