Parramatta. Key challenges facing the city

Population and knowledge-based employment growth, targeting younger workers, marketing the city brand and the Civic Place redevelopment are among the key economic development challenges facing the city, according to Parramatta City Council. Some $1.5 million will be allocated for project management of the $1.6 billion Civic Place project, which is scheduled to commence in the 2011/12 financial year. Stage one should be completed in 2013/14.

Westmead. $30 million for stage one

The Minister for Health and Minister for Medical Research, Jillian Skinner, announced funding of $30 million to go towards the construction of the $135 million stage one of a new headquarters for the Westmead Millennium Institute for Medical Research (WMI), before turning the first sod on the site. The new building will house highly advanced research equipment used by the Westmead Research Hub, and will be a resource for all teaching hospitals in Western Sydney, "Once all staff are housed under the same roof, this facility will become an ideas factory, allowing some of our brightest minds to work collaboratively, and across multiple disciplines," she said. WMI director, Professor Tony Cunningham, said WMI had quadrupled in size over the past 10 years to become one of Australia’s six largest institutes. “About two thirds of our 450 staff now cannot fit into the institute and are working in dated or substandard labs,” he said.

Parramatta. CBD car parks on the move

Parramatta City Council will investigate a number of potential redevelopment sites, incorporating commuter carparking, as part of a wider strategy to move CBD commuter carparking to the edges on the CBD. A report on the redevelopment of the Macquarie Street and Fennel Street car parks will be prepared for ratification by council.