Cranes Come Down as Footscray Hospital Tops Out

For more than a year, one site has held the record for the largest number of cranes on site in the Southern Hemisphere.

That is now coming to an end with the new $1.5-billion Footscray Hospital’s final building topping out and the project moving into the fitout stage ahead of its opening next year.

“These cranes have graced Footscray’s skyline for the past couple of years—and now they’ll start coming down, so we’re one step closer to delivering the new Footscray Hospital,” Victorian premier Daniel Andrews said.

The project fronting Geelong and Ballarat roads comprises four buildings in the new health and education precinct.

More than 2 million hours of work, 150,000 tonnes of concrete and 125,000 hours of work by apprentices, cadets and trainees went into the project, which is expected to cater to almost 15,000 patients when it opens and allow an extra 20,000 more people to be seen in its emergency department.

The new emergency department will be part of the final 10-storey inpatient unit (IPU) tower with more than 500 beds and a garden at the end of each wing on Geelong Road.

A sub-acute building sits on Ballarat Road with an ambulatory care department, allied health clinic, space for clinical trials, a wellness hub and a rooftop cafe.

After the findings of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, there will also be 50 mental health beds, 16 alcohol or other drug (AOD) beds and a mental health and AOD hub.

Multiplex was selected as the builder for the project along with the Plenary Health Consortium in October, 2020 for what was then the largest single health infrastructure investment in the state.

Plenary Group, Multiplex, Cox Architecture, Billard Leece Partnership, Honeywell, Compass Group and Sojitz Corporation made up the consortium.

The agreement involved the consortium designing and building the hospital and then running and maintaining it for 25 years in partnership with the Victorian government.