Former Bankstown TAFE Site Slated for $2bn Hospital
Plans for a $2-billion hospital in Sydney’s south-west are now on exhibition, pushing major public infrastructure into one of NSW’s biggest transport-led growth precincts.
Designed by Architectus and Billard Leece Partnership, the New Bankstown Hospital scheme would remake the former TAFE NSW Bankstown site into a major health campus inside a precinct rezoned for 14,000 homes and 14,300 jobs.
A State Significant Development application would redevelop 490 Chapel Road and Raw Avenue, Bankstown, with a 14-storey main hospital building, a 10-storey parking and logistics building, and new roads, landscaping and public domain works.
Stage 1—on exhibition until May 7—would include the main hospital, a logistics hub within the parking structure, internal roads, signage, landscaping and a new public plaza.
Broader masterplan documents leave room for later health, education and research uses across the site.
Planning material outlined long-term targets for a 95,000sq m acute hospital with room to expand, showing the proposal reaches well beyond a single hospital building.
State planning documents placed the site, about 20km west from the Sydney CBD, inside the Bankstown Transport Oriented Development precinct, where rezoning has opened room for 14,000 homes and 14,300 jobs.
Bankstown was the first area rezoned under the state’s accelerated program to add more homes near major public transport, putting the hospital proposal inside a much larger remake of the city centre.
Hospital land sits on the northern edge of the CBD in a part of the centre earmarked for health and education as new development moves in.
Southern land is zoned MU1 mixed use and the northern portion SP2 infrastructure, tying the proposal directly to a wider reshape already under way around Bankstown station and the future Metro.
Existing TAFE buildings on the site would be demolished under separate approved works, with demolition, site clearing, tree removal, earthworks and service changes already mapped out ahead of the hospital build.
TAFE NSW has already shifted most teaching into the new Bankstown City campus and nearby sites, freeing a prominent inner-city parcel for one of the biggest public health projects now moving through the NSW planning system.
Site history runs far deeper than its recent use as a TAFE campus.
Before TAFE, the site formed part of land promised to Richard Morgan in 1818 and formally granted in 1830.
Ownership later passed through the Abbott and Tynan families, with houses fronting Chapel Road through the late 19th and early 20th centuries before resumption in 1946 for a technical college.
Workshop blocks followed in 1948, a general studies block opened in 1962 and by the 1970s most of the site had been built out.
Heritage work said the site itself was not listed, but investigations identified archaeological potential beneath the land, including one area linked to the former Tynan family home.
Immediately north sits the locally listed St Felix de Valois Pioneer Cemetery, although the heritage assessment said the hospital would not harm its heritage values.
Pressure on surrounding infrastructure also ran through the planning material.
Planning reports said surrounding roads were already close to or at capacity, with broader Bankstown growth expected to drive long-term strain more than the hospital alone.
Proposed responses included new traffic signals at Heath Street and Chapel Road near the hospital’s northern access, a new roundabout at Meredith Street and French Avenue and a shared pedestrian and cycle path along Chapel Road.
Early works have begun ahead of demolition and site preparation.
