To celebrate the topping out of the George Centre, the project's stakeholders and partners held a ceremony at the Gregory Hills site last week.
The George Centre is an innovative health and wellbeing facility - specialising in maternity and paediatrics - that will be centerpiece of a new family-focused health campus for the South West region.
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Members of the Acurio Group - including CEO Scott Fowler, Buildcorp, Healthco and other stakeholders in the medical centre attended the ceremony on Wednesday, June 15.
The opening speech and introduction for the event was done by Mr Fowler, while Buildcorp managing director, Tony Sukkar AM, and HealthCo senior portfolio manager, Sam Morris, also spoke.
Acurio Group chief strategy officer, Dr Robert Lin, said they had received overwhelming support from the community, health professionals, local government and businesses.
"Our vision of transforming lives and complementing what the local health districts have provided in addressing the unmet needs for the local community is being realised with the project," he said.
"It will complement existing services to help meet the family healthcare needs of Camden, Campbelltown and the surrounding community.
"We want to engage closely with the community and clinicians."
HealthCo, who are major investors in the project, expect to create a $500+ million health precinct at the site, with their investment to be in the development and ownership of the land and physical infrastructure.
The decision to invest came as HealthCo wants to deliver on its purpose to create "healthier communities" by increasing access to critical health and wellbeing services and infrastructure in areas of need.
"We do that through the development and acquisition of quality health infrastructure that meets the needs of the community," a HealthCo spokesperson said.
"We identified Acurio as a quality health operator in the region. We formed a partnership with Acurio to develop an integrated health precinct at Gregory Hills, with the George to be stage one.
"The George Centre and the broader health precinct ... will provide much needed health infrastructure for the community.
"Future stages will include a larger general hospital and a medical research facility."
Buildcorp were awarded the contract to build the George Centre, with construction commencing in September, 2021.
In just over eight months, the project has seen 6000m3 of concrete poured, 700 tonnes of reinforcement and 2000m2 of glass installed.
There were over 1100 workers inducted, representing over 82,122 hours of construction work - with an estimate of 25-30 per cent of the workforce coming from South West Sydney.
Mr Sukkar said it was a huge achievement to construct the George Centre on program, given the adversities in the industry, particularly labour shortages, materials delays and excessive weather disruptions.
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"As a family-owned and family-values led business, Buildcorp is strongly aligned to the values and beliefs of The George Centre," he said.
"The services provided by The George Centre will be a much-needed boost to the healthcare facilities available to the South Western Sydney region. The Buildcorp family can't wait to see this new era in maternity and paediatric health."
The George Centre is expected to open late in the second quarter of 2023.
Finn Coleman
Having grown-up in the Hawkesbury, I understand the importance of the Hawkesbury Gazette in highlighting stories that members of the local community care about - including events, businesses, sports and the people that make our town unique.
Having grown-up in the Hawkesbury, I understand the importance of the Hawkesbury Gazette in highlighting stories that members of the local community care about - including events, businesses, sports and the people that make our town unique.
