Qld: Premier unveils new ABC HQ plans

AAP General News (Australia)
12-22-2009
Qld: Premier unveils new ABC HQ plans

BRISBANE, Dec 22 AAP - The Queensland Symphony Orchestra, retail shops and state-of-the-art
broadcast facilities will be housed at the new ABC headquarters in Brisbane.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh and ABC chairman Maurice Newman unveiled concept designs
for the new Queensland headquarters on Tuesday following the abandonment of the old ABC
offices three years ago.

Staff vacated the Toowong site and were dispersed over eight sites across Brisbane
following a cancer cluster.

To date, 17 staff members have been diagnosed with breast cancer, with 14 of those
cases investigated by an independent expert.

The new building will be built in Ms Bligh's electorate at the city's cultural precinct
in South Bank.

Ms Bligh refused to reveal the cost of the 15,500 square metre building that will house
up to 450 ABC staff and the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, saying it was commercial in
confidence.

"These are commercial decisions between the federal government as the purchaser of the
land and South Bank Corporation," she said.

The building will sit between the Queensland Performing Arts Centre and Griffith University's
Queensland Conservatorium of Music.

It will consume some of the public green space near the conservatorium but Ms Bligh
said new green space near the Queensland Maritime Museum at South Bank would be created.

She said the final remnants of the Expo 88 buildings would be cleared to make way for
the new green space, which would open up more riverfront area and create more pathways
and bike ways.

It would also include a new children's playground.

The building will be completed in late 2011 or early 2012 with construction to start next year.

AAP peb/jmm/ldj

KEYWORD: ABC (PIX AVAILABLE)

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