By Charlene Macaulay
The Australian Education City consortium has reaffirmed its vision for the East Werribee Employment Precinct by launching a website that details its $31 billion smart city plan.
The website features previously unknown details about its master plan for the 412-hectare site, and a number of videos from key players within the consortium and its partners that espouse the benefits of the East Werribee plan.
The consortium has promised to deliver six million square metres of education, research and development, innovation, residential, community and commercial space on what is the largest undeveloped parcel of publicly-owned surplus government land in metropolitan Melbourne, including:
•A university to cater for 40,000 students, including 20,000 international students;
•Housing to accommodate 80,000 residents, including 21,000 high or medium density apartments, 6900 student dwellings and 1450 stand-alone houses and townhouses;
•An underground train line and new stations that link up to the Werribee line;
•Nearly 800,000 square metres of research and development space to be operated by international business park partners, and 1.15 million square metres of other commercial office floor space, which will contribute to more than 90,000 new jobs; and
•An arts, culture and entertainment precinct that will include exhibitions, entertainment and community sporting facilities.
The consortium has memorandums of understanding to partner with a number of Asian and global companies including PWC, IBM, Honeywell, Cisco, Telstra, JP Morgan and Jacobs.
AEC executive director Ross Martiensen said East Werribee would be a “live, work and play environment” that would create a 20-minute walkable neighbourhood and strong employment opportunities close to home.
“[It] will incorporate four schools, from primary up to secondary, as well as a 10,000-student TAFE or training facility and a 40,000-student campus,” Mr Martiensen said. “The [university] campus is going to be a little bit different in that there’s going to be integration with industry and commercial opportunity, but also it’s going to be serviced by a number of different educational institutions all operating within the same space.”
As reported by
Star Weekly last month, a spokesperson for Werribee MP Tim Pallas said the state government was “continuing to undertake an assessment of this project before making any decisions”.
Details: www.australianeducationcity.com/
