The ABC would be happy to vacate its present site and go elsewhere if it got enough money for a new studio, the ABC’s manager for Canberra, Philip Koch, said yesterday.
In seeking expressions of interest for the redevelopment of its present site, the ABC was only following advice from ACT planning officials in its attempt to seek more suitable premises for its future ACT role.
“”The ABC does not want to be a developer,” Mr Koch said. “It just wants premises to suit its present and future functions.”
If it could not get that either through redevelopment of the present site or surrender of it and enough compensation to build a new studio on a new site, then it would sit on its present lease, which ran for 99 years from 1979.
The latter option would be of no use to the ACT community or the ABC.
A Land Titles search has revealed that the ABC was granted a lease over the 1.5ha Northbourne Avenue site in 1992.
Mr Koch said before that the ABC had just occupied the site as a Commonwealth authority since the 1960s. The more to formalise the position had begun in the mid-1990s when the then chairman, Ken Meyer, wanted an assets audit of the whole ABC and was perplexed to find Canberra’s ABC was on land it did not have a lease over. It had taken till the beginning of 1992 to formalise the lease.
There had been no agenda to get a lease after the local television news had closed (in August, 1991) with a view to development.
The closure of the TV service had left the ABC with excess space and large bills for maintaining it. The site had originally had been large enough to house the ABC’s national headquarters, he said.
The Broadcasting and Television Act required the headquarters to move, but that provision has been repealed.
Mr Koch said it was not going to happen, so the ABC was now holding a site beyond its needs. It was now sensible for the ABC to seek prestige premises on a suitable site more appropriate to its needs.
It was in the ACT’s interests to have the Northbourne Avenue site redeveloped in a way suitable for the gateway to Canberra.
The ABC would be happy to go elsewhere provided the compensation it got for vacating the Northbourne site was enough to build there and it got a lease.
It is understood that the ABC would need at least $3 million to build a studio for its present Canberra radio and national functions, and probably more. Media sources say the ABC is under some pressure with space and rent at Parliament House and a site near Parliament for its Canberra operation would suit the ABC well