For three years, the Garran Surge Centre was the ACT’s bastion against the pandemic, serving as testing site, vaccination clinic, and walk-in centre for people with COVID-19, until it was decommissioned in February, its purpose fulfilled. Now, work has begun to deconstruct it, and reuse and recycle its fittings, before the site returns to being Garran Oval next year.

The $14 million facility was constructed in May 2020 as a field hospital should COVID-19 numbers increase. It was designed in a week in partnership with the World Health Organization, and built in 37 days. ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said it had been value for money.

“The surge centre has played an important role in our pandemic response for the entire three years it was in operation,” Ms Stephen-Smith said.

“As Canberrans would remember, it was built in a very short time period at the beginning of the pandemic when we really didn’t know what was coming our way, and it was built with expert advice to operate as an overflow emergency department or a Code Red emergency department if there was a need for that. Fortunately, we were in a circumstance where we did not need to use it for that use – and we’ve always said the best outcome would be that it wouldn’t be required for that use …

“The Canberra community has said to us that they appreciated the ACT Government acting quickly in the face of great uncertainty, so it’s hard to measure whether an insurance policy, which is effectively what this is, is value for money if it’s never used. But ultimately … we got a lot of use out of the surge centre, even though it was never needed to be stood up for its original purpose.”

Local construction company Manteena will deconstruct and recycle the building by the end of the year.

Another contractor will then remediate the oval and retore the south-west carpark.

The project will cost $8 million: an even split between the deconstruction of the surge centre and the remediation of the oval.

“It is a significant investment in ensuring that this oval is not only returned to community use, but is returned to community use as a high quality facility,” Ms Stephen-Smith said.

The surge centre is largely empty now; all the equipment that other ACT health facilities can use has already been removed.

The facility is made up of several materials that can be easily recycled, Martin Little, deputy chief project officer, Major Projects Canberra, said. Metal cladding on the roof and walls; the doors can be reused; and the extractor fans and solar lighting can be recycled.

“Anything that can be reused and repurposed will be, and anything that can be recycled will be,” Ms Stephen-Smith said.

The new oval will open in term 3 next year. It will include a new cricket pitch, modern LED lighting, and a drought-tolerant grassed playing surface that Garran Primary School students and the community can use.

“The oval … will be not only fit for use, but a better facility and easily maintained into the future,” Ms Stephen-Smith said.

But creating it “will take some time”, she said, because the gravel site needs to be topsoiled, turf relaid, and then given time to settle. (Seeding the oval would take 12 months, the minister noted.)

“I really thank the people of Garran … and particularly the primary school … for their patience while we’ve had the surge centre up and running and in this period while we’ve worked out how to decommission it,” Ms Stephen-Smith said.

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