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According to a new paper from the Property Council of Australia (PCA), better methods exist for industry and governments to unite and add greater value to projects within the sector.
The precincts discussion paper, released by the PCA following two years of work from the council’s precinct committee, highlights numerous case studies indicating ways that education precincts can be supercharged to create greater value through a more collaborative approach by the property sector.
Adina Cirson, acting NSW executive director at the PCA, believes the property industry should assess whether more can be done — especially around innovation — that could act as an enabler for such opportunities within the sector so that the flow-on benefits of such projects can be shared.
However, she identified it as not solely a problem for the sector itself to work through, instead identifying the role the NSW government can play as an “enabler in the initial establishment of precincts, providing clarity around taxation and planning pathways, and encouraging precincts to develop their own governance structures as they mature through their life cycles.”
Ms Cirson revealed the 2020 value of the NSW education sector’s property portfolio was approximately $52 billion, explaining it contains “real estate assets that are primed for reapplication toward additional revenue generating ventures.”
“More broadly, the education sector contains a weighty asset portfolio, with the book value of the NSW Department of Education alone totalling over $33 billion and NSW’s top 10 universities making up a significant portion of the total NSW education sector,” she said.
Having recovered from the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, Ms Cirson believes “there is still much to be done for universities to counterbalance the diminution of federal government funding and increasing costs, including [those] of digitisation.”
Outlining how the sector is “presented with a significant opportunity to leverage capital locked up in asset holdings,” she added there is an opportunity to “concurrently revitalise education precincts and ‘hone’ in on core business operations.”
Ms Cirson revealed avenues exist for “co-investment in developments with the private sector,” concluding this can “leverage the economic output of innovation districts and precincts more generally by combining the strengths of academia with commercialisation of industry partners.”
The most recent suggestions by the PCA follow similar claims issued at the beginning of last year, when the council declared the state’s education sector a “golden opportunity” for investors, citing the multi-billion dollar portfolio hidden within the sector.
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