Campus will be in McLaren St office block
Inspired Education’s application to build another campus of its Eastern suburbs school Reddam House in the North Sydney CBD has been approved.
Initially, North Sydney Council was against the $44 million proposal, with concerns about traffic and lack of recreational facilities for the 1,560 students. Council withdrew its objection following responses to its concerns from proponent, Inspired Education (IE).
The school will be housed in heritage-listed Simsmetal House, designed by Harry Seidler and built in 1972. It is currently an almost empty eight-storey office block at 41 McLaren Street, which will be adaptively reused to accommodate the kindergarten to Year 12 cohort.
The NSW Department of Planning and Environment approved the development on 7 November with several conditions. A drop off/pick up area must be completed before the school opens in January 2025.
Initially, up to 500 primary and secondary students will start as part of stage 1. A further 1,000 senior students (Years 7 to 12) would join if approval was granted for a subsequent development application. The department has stated that if ‘mitigation’ measures were needed to control the drop off/pick up area, and these failed, there could be no rise in the student population.
An additional condition is that there must be evidence of a lease agreement between IE and local councils for use of off-site recreational facilities. IE has had several ‘positive’ discussions with Lane Cove Council about use of its facilities during school hours, which would require bus transfer of students from North Sydney during school hours.
Despite the school being located in a busy CBD, within 500 metres of five other schools, the department found that the site was ‘well-suited’ for the campus and in line with projected population growth for the area.
IE said in its application that it had identified ‘strong demand’ for co-educational and non-denominational schooling in Sydney, with North Sydney high schools mostly single-sex facilities.
Further, the application states: “The adaptive reuse of this asset will breathe new life into a prominent North Sydney centre site and enable IE to continue to educate and empower students and deliver world class education in line with the IE vision.”