On Tuesday 27 February, after a long and arduous building process, Stage 3 of the College’s Master Plan — the new Heath Learning Centre and the refurbished Campbell Visual Arts Centre — were officially blessed by College Chaplain Father Dean Bradbury and officially opened by Mr Christopher Houlihan, Chief Executive of Mercy Education. At the same time, the College took the opportunity to bless the refurbished Sinnott Visual Arts Centre, which was never officially opened after COVID-19.
Without detailing the extensive processes to produce the buildings, a new Master Plan was launched late in 2015, which at the time, contained 10 stages of development — outlined over 10,500sqm of development and construction costs in excess of $35 million. This Master Plan has been revisited and updated twice since.
The construction of the Mercy Learning Centre was Stage 1 of that process, with floorspace of over half an acre and costing just under $10 million. It was a major undertaking. Designed by Cirillo Architects and built by Becon, it was opened in August 2019. It now houses our Year 12 cohort.
Almost immediately the College moved to Stage 2 of the revisited Master Plan, which was the refurbishment of the Sister Rosalie Sinnott building, more affectionately known as the Barak library or for so many as the ‘old Barak library’.
This was to be a $3 million plus refurbishment and the start of the creation of our dream for a Visual Arts precinct in our College. It was also designed by Cirillo Architects, it was a dream of an idea based on a New York-style gallery which housed two very large studios including pottery/clay room and spray booths, and huge storage cupboards. Downstairs was a well-appointed photography studio. This project was overseen by Pure Projects and the builder was Interface, but again it was not an easy build and this will forever be the COVID-19 era building.
The build process was punctuated by a long period of stopping and starting work through lockdowns and limited staff on site, and so the build time blew out by some months.
Students did eventually occupy the building towards the end of 2021, but we were never able to officially open or bless it.
Almost immediately the College moved to Stage 3 of our Master Plan, which consisted of the demolition of our Year 10 block and art rooms, the Glenys Heath block. The demolition of the Ford buildings — which were essentially relocatable buildings which had been altered many times over the years and were used as Visual Communication and Design rooms and classrooms — and the gutting of the Campbell building, which were Art and Media rooms. The concept is a simple one, whereby we are trying to reduce our footprint while increasing floorspace and facilities.
Stage 3 has been a mammoth task.
Again it was built under the brilliance of architect Matt Cirillo, the pleasing introduction of Fontic Project Managers and the return of Becon Builders. Originally planned at $10 million, costs blew out to $13.6 million before contracts were finalised and work began in mid-2022.
What was supposed to be 30 days of rock breaking very quickly turned into 96 days, and thus the period of elongation started. Students were originally planned to move into these facilities by July 2023, but they were unable to move in until the beginning of this year.
These past two years have been very difficult in the building industry and, despite all the issues faced, the quality of the building has not been compromised and will serve MLMC for many decades to come.
The Stage 3 facility houses classrooms for the future, numbering 11 as well as staff offices, toilets, locker bays, Visual Communication studios, Art and Media studios and impressive open passive recreation areas.
These facilities provide for a very well-appointed senior campus. We are blessed to have them.
I hope you get the opportunity to visit and experience the ambience soon.
In the spirit of Catherine,
God bless.
