MBM Pty Ltd

Existing built infrastructure including buildings, services, roads and parking

• St George Hospital has no obvious expansion opportunities outside its current boundaries.
• There are sensitive residential & heritage zones adjacent to the site which will impact future development.
• It is likely that the massing of multi-level structures along Gray Street will be required to be setback from the boundary at higher levels to reduce impact upon residential areas opposite. The existing Fire Station is heritage listed and small in scale. This may require the design of adjacent buildings to address the massing and architectural design of the fire station.
• An aviation consultant has reviewed the impact that building the AST has on the existing helipad on top of the adjacent Gray St carpark. The aviation report concludes that above level four of the AST, there will be impacts on current operations. To address this, the operational management of the helipad will need to be investigated for the period from when the AST structure is above level 4, until completion and commissioning of the helipad on top of the AST.

The site boundaries, topography and surrounding roadways

• The hospital site does not have a major highway frontage or access.
• Vehicular access to the site has a number of congestion points.
• The site topography requires entries to be provided at different heights around the site, making coordination of internal floor levels difficult.

The Stage 1 building design

• The layout of the Emergency Department building, although designed around the 8.4 metre grid recommended by HI’s systemised development framework, has been modified in places to address a number of local constraints. To return columns to the grid on new higher levels, will require transfer structures, which will be expensive and will constrain services in the ceiling voids of important clinical spaces.
• The Stage 1 building blocks vehicular access to the courtyard behind it. There is a large amount of plant adjacent to that courtyard which is now inaccessible to service vehicles. Any plant replacement will require equipment to be lifted in or out by a large tower crane, and the construction of a new core for the Acute Services Tower in that courtyard will further constrain that access.
• Stage 1 provides only a concrete roof slab and metal deck roof over the ground floor Emergency Department, rather than a full shell floor. This requires the Stage 2 design to plan for removal of the temporary metal roof and construction of Level 1 while Emergency continues in operation, a difficult and potentially risky task.

Council zoning and height limits

• Although there are no council limits to building height on the site, tall structures are likely to overshadow neighbouring residential properties.