Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

The Victorian Government has contracted Plenary Health to design, build, finance and maintain the Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre (VCCC). The VCCC is a unique and ambitious endeavour; a new centre on a landmark Melbourne site, in a famous biomedical precinct.

The facility will be purpose built for cancer research, treatment and care and will be the new home for Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. It will link with cancer services at The Royal Melbourne Hospital, The Royal Women's Hospital and The Royal Children's Hospital, providing all patients with access to the best services and facilities, and create new research and teaching facilities for the Peter MacCallum Research Institute, University of Melbourne and Melbourne Health. The centre brings together this powerful alliance in a collaborative work environment for world-leading research, education and clinical activities.

The 130,000m² VCCC will be built over 13 levels and include two bridge links to the Royal Melbourne Hospital where Plenary Health will also deliver a further 12,000m² of extensions and refurbishment.

The project will deliver:

160 overnight inpatient cancer beds
a 42-bed capacity intensive care unit
110 same day beds
a dedicated clinical trials unit with 24 treatment places
over 25,000 square metres of specialised research space
eight operating theatres and two procedure rooms
eight radiation therapy bunkers
education and training facilities (a 250 person and 60 person lecture theatres plus 47 seminar/meeting rooms throughout).

Project Facts

Plenary Group is the project sponsor, equity investor and financial arranger for the project.

Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Client: Victorian Government
Value (NPV): A$1 billion
Builder: Grocon/PCL Joint Venture
Architects: Design Inc/Silver Thomas Hanley Joint venture with McBride Charles Ryan
Financial Close: 16 December, 2011
Completion Date: Early 2016
Duration: 25 years

Design Features

Architecture

The new design is to be symbolic and representative of the bringing together of the project partners, of the creation of new networks and clusters of collaboration. The building will have an imagery that is expressive of optimism and progress.

It will be instantly recognisable, both locally and internationally.

Public Realm, Accessibility and Wayfinding

The VCCC will be easy to access. The building will be surrounded by colonnades, retail facilities and high quality materials to create an intriguing pedestrian environment and will greatly contribute to the public realm in Melbourne. The generous central atrium is a key element in the design and it will immeasurably enhance the internal environment of the centre. The Atrium will assist patients and carers in their journey through the building. The atrium space will also not only provide light and way finding throughout but will be the focus of formal and informal collaboration and interaction for the staff and users of the centre.

Innovations

Largely reliant on bank debt for financing, the project achieved the longest tenor of bank debt of this volume in the Australian market since the GFC. In somewhat of a breakthrough, Plenary included local Australian superannuation funds across all levels of the capital structure.

Plenary looked for an innovative commercial solution to future proof master planning. To ensure future expansion for project partners could be achieved, Plenary delivered significant integrated future expansion capacity up-front, at no additional cost to the State.

Plenary Health committed to developing a sustainable VCCC facility of which energy efficiency is a major platform. A major innovation has been to reduce the energy load of the facility’s data centre which could consume up to 40% of the buildings energy. By incorporating an economy air cycle the data centre cooling requirement can be reduced with "free cooling" reducing both energy and green house gas emissions.

Local Economic Impacts

Plenary Health committed to the Victorian Government's Local Industry Development Plan.

This will include the creation of 500 new full-time equivalent jobs (including 50 new apprenticeships) on site.

On site labour resources will average 700 persons for the expected four years of construction, peaking in the order of 1,100 persons.

Offsite resources involved in support industries, including design and manufacturing, is expected to average 2,500 persons for the project duration.

There will be tens of millions of dollars in work for local industry.

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