Old Byron Hospital Redevelopment

Byron Community Hub render

We are redeveloping the old Byron Hospital site.

Purpose of the old Byron Hospital site

The Byron community have helped to reimagine the site as a new community space.

The site will have a wide range of uses with three main precincts:

  1. Education precinct – home to one of Australia’s leading universities.
  2. Community precinct – providing access to essential services such as mental health, family support and youth services.
  3. Commercial precinct – professional space for socially-minded health, wellbeing and for-purpose businesses that align with the core vision of supporting individuals and the community to thrive. This includes the potential for a social enterprise café.

Who will manage the site?

Once the redevelopment of the site is complete, expected to be Mid 2024, it will be managed by Social Futures. Social Futures will be supported by:

  • Community Advisory Group - currently working on the project
  • Tenant Site Management Committee - to be established closer to opening.

Cost

Build cost for repurposing the site is estimated to be around $6.8 million. However, with the construction industry at a point of huge fluctuations in costs, this will be confirmed during the construction tender process.

Location

This element requires javascript to be enabled.

Please wait while we load your map...

NSW Health decommissioned the old hospital site in Byron when the new hospital was built. NSW Health had planned to sell off the site for redevelopment.

The local community rallied together and developed a proposal to NSW Health to keep the building in community hands.

The basis of the community’s proposal was that the building would be used to provide vital and currently lacking welfare, social, cultural and educational services.

NSW Health accepted the community’s proposal and sold the proposal to Council in 2019 for $1.

In 2021, Council awarded a tender for the ongoing management of the site to Social Futures – a not for profit social impact organisation based in Northern NSW who connect people to the support they need, when they need it.

Once the redevelopment of the site is complete, it will be managed by Social Futures, who will be supported by a Community Advisory Group (currently working on the project) and a Tenant Site Management Committee (to be established closer to opening).

 

 

Currently, community service providers are forced to operate in more affordable locations outside of Byron Bay.

This means that the most disadvantaged Byron residents face barriers in accessing in services.  

These barriers include:

  • Distance
  • Travel costs
  • Lack of public transport.

The project will bring these vital community services to the heart of Byron Bay, improving social cohesion and connectivity.

Having different service providers in a centralised 'hub', will mean recipients can see and access a variety of services, such as health and education.

The previous hospital kitchen may also be used as a commercial kitchen, available for hire. The existing cafe/kiosk may be retained as a cafe, to service students and other site users. 

Expressions of interest

Prospective tenants should email their expression of interest to:

Timeline

  • 2016 - NSW Health decommissions the old Byron hospital site when the new hospital was built. 
  • 2018 - Community Steering Committee develop proposal to return the site to the local community. Proposal to NSW Health Repurposing of the former Byron Hospital site(PDF, 3MB)
  • 2019 - Council buys the old Byron Hospital site from NSW Health.  
  • 2021 - Tender for ongoing management of the site awarded to Social Futures.  
  • December 2022 - Development application repurposing the building currently approved. 
  • 2023 – Redevelop site.
  • Mid 2024 - Site fully operational.

Contact

Back to top