The Church Street Children’s Centre in West Footscray will be demolished and rebuilt from scratch at a cost close to $4 million.
Maribyrnong council will partly offset the cost by selling the Footscray site of the former Empire Early Learning Centre, which closed in December despite the protest of parents.
Councillors at Tuesday night’s council meeting voted unanimously to demolish the existing building at Church Street to prepare the site for a new centre.
The centre was originally slated for a redevelopment costing less than $2 million and due to be completed by last month. But the project has languished since the middle of last year when builders discovered “serious structural design issues”.
Independent investigations conducted for the council concluded that “the preferred approach is to demolish the existing structure in its entirety”, increase capacity, improve parking, staff and storage areas and focus on environmentally sustainable design.
“The design will no longer be constrained by the existing building footprint and can therefore explore new innovative solutions,” a report by council staff stated.
The new build, estimated to cost between $3.8 million and $4.4 million, is expected to take until the end of next year to complete.
Families relocated to the Maribyrnong Community Centre last July would remain there until the start of 2018.
Demolition would begin next month, followed by the drawing up of a new concept design and further cost estimates.
The existing centre is housed in a 1940s building with a 1980s extension.
Councillors also voted for the new centre to be partly funded by the sale of the now-vacant childcare centre at 8 Empire Street.
A report by council staff stated the property has no future use to the community.
“The site is assessed as having no current community utilisation, assessed as being in a location which has minimal community exposure, a small land area and is not suitable for development for any current or foreseeable future community use.
“It is recommended that revenue from this sale be utilised for the development of the early-years site at 47 Church Street, West Footscray.”
Cr Sarah Carter told the council meeting she was reluctant to sell off any council land but was pleased the money would be put towards the Church Street redevelopment.
