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ATO picks
Belconnen
office site
By DAVID SIBLEY
The Australian Taxation Office
has selected the corner of Chandler
Street and Cameron Avenue, Bel
connen, as the site for its new Can
berra Regional Office building.
Section 45, Block 7 was selected after a
detailed recommendation by the Taxa
tion Office's new building steering com
mittee.
The 22,000-square-metre building, ex
pected to be completed in 1994, will
house up to 715 staff and an automated
document-despatch centre.
The site fronts Chandler Street, Col
lege Street and Eastern Valley Way, its
eastern part occupied by an overflow car
park for the Cameron Offices,
i The committee selected Section 45,
BJock 7 from a short list of three Belcon
neri sites after all available sites in the
area defined by Emu Bank, Eastern Val
ley* Way, College Street, and Lathlain
Street had been investigated.
1 The other two sites were Section 52,
Block 4, which is the level L-shaped block
: o riffle corner of Emu Bank and Benjamin
Way next to the Belconnen Mall car park,
and Section 55, Block 36, between Emu
Bank and Chandler Street behind Lake
side Square.
" Each site was rated against seven selec
tion criteria:.
Proximity to public transport, a maxi
mum distance of 1km considered.
Availability of unrestricted car parking.
Safe pedestrian access from public trans
port to the site with emphasis on af
ter-hours lighting.
Access to shops and commercial facilities.
■ Quality of adjacent buildings and sur
rounding environment. ,
Availability of site for purchase based on
ownership and permitted land use. .
The most economical site to develop to
Taxation Office standards.
Section 45 rated 19 out of a possible 20
points, Section 52 rated 14 and Section 55
rated 14. Section 45 rated the maximum
scores of four and five for the two most
important criteria, availability of site and
most economical site.
The recommendation said that "this is
mainly due to the probability of procur
ing a lease over a section of Site 3, in a
time frame which will allow the design
and construction program to meet a com
pletion date of the first half of 1994". The
site is non-designated land owned by the
Commonwealth.
Section 45 was the closest site to the
Belconnen Bus Interchange. All three
sites rated well for availability of parking
and safe pedestrian access, although Sec
tion 45 received the lowest rating for ac
cess to shops, being furthest from the
Belconnen Mailt.
Despite being overshadowed on its
western side by the Cameron Offices, Sec
tion 45 rated well for quality of adjacent
buildings and environment.
Belconnen won the site for the new
regional office ahead of Woden, Civic and
Tuggeranong, after being rated "excel
lent" in 11 of the 14 selection criteria.
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