Canberra Club Rolls Two-Tower Dice to Diversify From Pokies
A Canberra hospitality and gaming club’s plan to diversify income away from poker machines is coming together in the form of two proposed apartment towers at the Woden town centre.
For a 7858sq m site on Launceston Street, the Canberra Southern Cross Club has proposed the final two-tower piece of its masterplan that envisages 888 apartments across seven towers up to 12 storeys with a combined 70,000sq m of floorspace.
Under Canberra’s idiosyncratic leasehold system, the club in the national capital’s south acquired the wider 36,147sq m masterplan site in 1999. Between then and 2012, the club operated a pitch-and-putt golf course there that proved unviable.
If approved, the final two towers would rise at the far north of the Woden Valley suburb of Phillip that in line with Canberra’s unique Y-Plan was developed from the late 1960s as the first of the Australian Capital Territory’s several satellite office and retail centres.
Aside from its former use a a golf course, the club’s masterplan area is the final greenfields plot in the Woden town centre.
One of the two towers would comprise 199 apartments across its 12 storeys and the second 113-apartment building would be between nine and 12 storeys.
Designed by Canberra-headquartered Stewart Architecture, the project’s towers would be built-to-sell. Two of five previously approved towers at the masterplan site are slated as built-to-rent.
The build-to-rent apartments are being developed in partnership with Community Housing Canberra and the build-to-sell units will be delivered together with The Raiders rugby league club.
In 2015, the six-venue club removed 100 gaming machines. At the time, the club said developing the Phillip pitch-and-putt site was its major opportunity to diversify from gaming.
This week, club CEO Matt Walshe told The Urban Developer the project would “partly...create a new diversification path, partnering with like-minded community organisations and supporting a move away from existing core operations if they become unviable or lose social licence”.
The currently proposed two towers would include one, two and three-bedroom apartments, with all apartments having a balcony or courtyard.
The larger tower would have a pair of non-residential units on the ground floor planned for community purposes, a cafe or a shop.
Canberra Southern Cross Club’s Woden hospitality and gaming venue is at the far south of Phillip about 800m from the masterplan site.
Public feedback on the two-tower project closes on March 2.
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