Mirvac launches tech hub at Sydney’s Locomotive Workshops
Mirvac Group has become the latest landlord to embrace the hi-tech sector, launching Hoist, which it is pitching as a co-working partnership with incubator York Butter Factory, starting at the Australian Technology Park in Redfern in inner city Sydney.
Mirvac is developing the park into a $1 billion-plus complex anchored by the Commonwealth Bank, but its bid was unfavourably contrasted with a losing offer from tycoon Lang Walker, who had secured fast-growing Atlassian as a prospective tenant.
Now, Mirvac is pitching its partnership with YBF, which was started by the partners of Adventure Capital as a co-working space in Melbourne, as a means of bringing new companies to the Locomotive Workshops at ATP.
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Mirvac general manager of workplace experiences, Paul Edwards, says the partnership will help to create a wider cluster of start-ups in Sydney, adding to the NSW government’s entrepreneurial hub unveiled last week.
NSW will splash $35 million on that complex, bringing in key tenants Tank Stream Labs, Stone and Chalk and Fishburners in an 11-storey CBD building.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian says the investment will create up to 6500 new jobs. It will be located in a Memocorp-owned building on York Street in the CBD, and house 2500 residents across 17,000sqm.
Mirvac’s Edwards says at ATP start-ups will access support and advice to expand their businesses, saying the complex is aligned with government strategies for a complementary portfolio of innovation precincts.
“The Hoist partnership will be rolled out nationally and become part of the broader, highly inclusive YBF ecosystem,” he says.
YBF founder Stuart B. Richardson says there is “immense potential” to provide start-ups and entrepreneurs with industry-centric innovation precincts in prime locations.
The company says that after a wave of fin-tech and health-tech companies, a new group of prop-tech, retail-tech, cyber-security and artificial intelligence outfits is emerging.
