The future
The former Royal Adelaide Hospital site is located in the heart of one of the world’s most liveable cities and presents a once-in-a-century opportunity to create the high-value jobs and industries to secure the future for generations of South Australians to come.
By levering the global connectivity, innovation, research strengths and human capital of our local universities, Adelaide’s new creation and innovation neighbourhood will see more than 5000 people work and stay on site.
Woods Bagot has prepared a spatial master plan that identifies the built form and public realm opportunities for the site in becoming a drawcard, and for the first time 70% of the site will be open for the public to enjoy and serviced by an extended tram link.
The city’s famous parklands and laneways will weave through the site with new connections linking to the Adelaide Botanic Garden, the East End, universities and Adelaide Botanic High School.
The site will deliver an iconic mixed-use development that will integrate with the Adelaide Botanic Garden and adaptive re-use of heritage buildings and new commercial buildings to complement economic uses.
Renewal SA engaged Deloitte, based on their Make it Adelaide industry framework to explore an innovation framework to guide the vision and set the pathway for economic and business attraction opportunities.
The vibrant new creation and innovation neighbourhood will allow leading-edge anchor institutions and companies to connect with business startups, incubators, and accelerators, to launch their ideas and inventions across global markets.
What’s happening now
On site, seven heritage buildings are being retained and repurposed, affording space for new tenancies, activations and a mix of uses. The available buildings are being activated in phases, focusing on ground-level spaces in the first instance accommodating businesses, start-ups and entrepreneurs.
An Australian-first institute, building on world-leading research in machine learning and artificial intelligence, is the first new major tenant at the former Royal Adelaide Hospital site. The Women’s Health Centre will be transformed into the first Institute for Machine Learning with more than 300 creative thinkers, researchers and start-ups attracting the world’s best and brightest to come to work and study in South Australia.
Upgrades have commenced on the Allied Health Services Building as an adaptive reuse demonstration project that will deliver smart space for start-ups and entrepreneurs. This is complemented by Sparkke Change Beverage Company and KIK Innovation setting up on the ground floor of the McEwin Building.
Renewal SA has created a new activation zone during Adelaide’s festival period in the former hospital emergency carpark. The first activation in this space is the new Lot 14 Pop-up which is a chance to showcase some of the best and local South Australian food offerings from East End Cellars, The Sparkke Change Beverage Company, Eros and Locapops.
The site is also hosting the Adelaide_Portal, the only one in the Southern Hemisphere, a gold shipping container equipped with immersive audio visual technology that connects and open dialogues with many of the 25 portals around the world, as if you were in the same space.
This space will offer a range of different activities and activations curated either by Renewal SA or external operators, which provide a glimpse into the redevelopment’s vision while the site is transitioning into a significant culture attractor and innovative neighbourhood.
Hosting these activations and increasing tenant populations is a part of Renewal SA’s plan to support Adelaide’s prominent East End and surrounding businesses by adding vibrancy and new economic development through attracting more people to the former Royal Adelaide Hospital site, and encouraging them to reconnect and experience the space as something other than a hospital.