Uni marks building milestone
SOUTHERN Cross University Vice Chancellor Professor Peter Lee moved the last structural concrete into place to finalise the foundations of the university's second building on Friday.
The topping out ceremony was attended by Southern Cross University Chancellor the Hon John Dowd AO QC, university staff and Hutchinson Builders, the company responsible for constructing the 10-storey building which contains almost 18,000 tonnes of concrete, 1430 tonnes of reinforcing steel and 152 tonnes of structural steel.
Prof Lee said they were "delighted to have reached this milestone on such a significant building."
"The building is at the cornerstone of the continued expansion of the Gold Coast campus and is expected to be operational for session one, 2012.
"It marks an exciting time in the university's development after funding was received for a third building at the campus late last year," Prof Lee added.
The building will feature clinical laboratories for nursing and midwifery, laboratories for occupational health students and physiology, anatomy and biomechanics laboratories.
The building's gross floor area will be 15,417sq m and also contain teaching and learning spaces, offices, computer rooms, meeting rooms and a student lounge.
Building B, as it will be known, will further include a wellness clinic which will be open to the public and offer a range of health practitioner services and supporting student learning and clinical research.
The next phase of the project will be the fitting out of the building which will see builders install more than 420 doors and almost 200 whiteboards and pinboards.
The building will also feature an innovative rainwater collection system which is designed to capture water from the completed and planned buildings, store it underneath and distribute the water back to the other buildings for use at the various faculties and facilities.
Total costs of the three buildings is expected to be about $100 million.
