Plans for Tewantin TAFE to be reinvigorated into a new Sunshine Coast School of Design have been scrapped due to vandalism and building deterioration and replaced with a proposal for the site to accommodate independent seniors living.
Award winning architectural and design practice NRA (Noel Robinson Architects) Collaborative, the preferred proponents from an Expression of Interest (EOI) process in 2021 had plans to to re-use the buildings to develop a new Sunshine Coast School of Design.
The school was to feature educational facilities to service between 500 to 800 students annually, offering creative industry courses such as fashion, art, industrial design, architecture and interior design.
NRA Collaborative also proposed to undertake further consultation with the support of a local steering committee on future initiatives, which may include a theatre, creative art space for the community, and a research facility to support the local koala population.
But after recently completing a reassessment of the buildings they advised Noosa MP Sandy Bolton that the option to reinvigorate was no longer viable due to vandalism and deterioration, and their plans for a design school had to be replaced.
Ms Bolton met Andrew St Baker from the NRA Collaborative onsite, who advised the alternate proposal arrived at was for independent seniors living, which was one of the few uses allowable under the sites zoning, which ensures no clearing or impact to the biodiversity overlays and koala habitat.
Disappointing but not surprising was how Ms Bolton described the outcome.
“This is a result and reminder of the impacts of poor government decisions, processes that take far too long and unacceptable behaviour of those who over the past decade have vandalised the site,” Ms Bolton said.
“Our community will never forget the day it closed, nor the frustrating journey to try to save it, and the millions of taxpayer dollars invested in developing the site in 2004. This, along with many other TAFE facilities that closed under similar circumstances, is the ultimate example of a broken system. Neither my anger nor my determination to see those systems fixed has abated.”
The Tewantin TAFE campus was constructed in 2004 by the Queensland Government, opened in 2006 with 716 students and shut in 2014 with 256 students, many studying off-campus.
Since 2014 it has mostly sat idle and been subject to vandalism and building deterioration.
Due to the advocacy of Ms Bolton, council was provided with first option to purchase the site.
A flora and fauna assessment of the site commissioned by council identified suitable habitat for threatened species, including koala, glossy black cockatoo, vulnerable wallum frogs and endangered swamp crayfish.
Under the Noosa Plan and State Koala Conservation Plan the site was identified as an area of biodiversity significance and a koala priority area, limiting future development to the existing cleared footprint of the former TAFE campus.
In 2018 council formally offered to purchase the site from the state for $1.7m with funds to be sourced from the Environment Levy and general cash reserves. The state disclosed that Native Title still applied to the site requiring the state to enter into an Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) with the traditional owners, the Kabi Kabi people prior to the purchase proceeding.
In 2020 Noosa Council declined the opportunity to purchase it due to the time predicted to resolve the Kabi Kabi Native Title Federal Court case and the cost of restoring the buildings.
As a result, the State Government commenced an Expression of Interest with the successful proponent, announced in 2021, and the site formally transferred to the new owners in 2025.
“Even though I remain heartbroken at the devastation of the site and angry about the waste of taxpayers’ dollars through the closure decision in 2014 and subsequent processes, it is time to move forward. Given I have been advised that genuine affordable worker housing as I have fought for throughout the electorate and continue to is not possible on this site due to its zoning, that another identified housing need can be addressed is a positive, providing an avenue for our long term residents to downsize and remain in our community, freeing up family sized homes,” Ms Bolton said.
With no further information at this time, the Noosa MP has assured that she will continue to update on this site as she has done over the last years and looks forward to an outcome that meets the needs and expectations of our community.
