Griffith Uni Hits the Jackpot with Star Casino Deal for New Treasury Building Campus

Can you do a synopsis on the Nasams acquisition?

Pretty cool. It’s a beautiful building and a uni campus is a more suitable use for it in my opinion

damn! I was thinking the students could hit the pokies every Friday night 😆😆
Otherwise looks great. Well done Griffith!

So you can only see inside if your a griffith uni student? Locals and tourists miss out?

It's a disappointing option I'd say. After hours and on the weekend this building will be a waste of space while only students can use it. It should have been turned into retail space, or some form of public building like museum, art gallery, etc.

It should've been acquired as a Museum. It's a beautiful building.

I think it’s a great use of the space.

You could have mentioned UQ's historic Customs House in this piece. It's held on a 99-year lease and UQ banded together with some apartment owners in the tower behind to legally (unsuccessfully) oppose development of a huge residential tower very close beside CH around a decade ago. Since then UQ has taken over the sandstone former NAB building on the corner of Queen and Creek streets. Who knows if they plan on keeping both CBD historic buildings long-term? CH is like UQ's in-house classy restaurant (once upon a time it had the Staff Club overlooking the lawns and lakes at St Lucia for this purpose) and as I understand the former NAB building is focused on the wealthy business school's teaching, learning and program activities.
Don't dismiss Griffith as a "third" university. At one stage not too many years ago it was Qld's biggest uni ranked by student enrolment numbers and possibly it still is; sorry I'm not up with current data. But as I recall at that time, UQ, QUT and Griffith each had around 40,000 students. Unis are poked and prodded for all sorts of data cut in different ways and there are global and local rankings and measurements on which Griffith has at times outshone the other two main Brisbane-based unis.

So likely to still be a bit of a dead zone in the evenings, weekends and several months of uni holidays throughout the year. Still not a bad idea and good for the uni but not sure it will revitalise the city too much.

I had no idea this was happening, the rumour I heard was Myer was going in there. I'm actually so happy about this, this will breathe so life into the CBD.

Let's hope this is the beginning of something beautiful. Brisbane CBD is so underutilized.

Keep up the awesome work. It’s great to get this style of video on local (Aus and Brisbane) topics and you seem really passionate about the topics you cover

I'm going to assume the two faculties (I.T. & Law) are going to be popular -the video quotes the building is planned to accommodate 7,000 students. The renders show a lot of desks and individual study areas, and the centre square (flanked by the building's four sides) looks to be turned into an open seating area. So what about lecture theatres & rooms?

I haven't been to Uni in a long time, so not sure if physical lectures even exist any more. But how does such a small building fit in enough lecture rooms & theatres for 7,000 students? Especially if the centre square isn't going to be converted either?

Last time I checked Treasury Casino's conference rooms, there were only about 5 available, and only about one or two that would fit more than 100 people....

Just seems like an odd choice for a campus for two of the more popular faculties.

Ridiculous. Bloody unis are property investors and immigration factories before educational institutions.

So many questions, one is how will 7000 students be able to attend lectures in this building as there are no lecture thratres.

But the big question is cost. Was this a good economic buy at 75 million dolars, how much will the conversion cost, will this mean higher uni fees. Lets be honest unis dont need fancy historical buildings in the cbd . They need cheap, practical buildings that can provide high class education at the lowest possible cost to the students attending, not massive hecs debts because they had a fancy building

I wish Brisbane still built the classical sandstone kind of architecture. It would make our cities look much nicer and more iconic, compared to the boring simplistic detached buildings/houses that flood the majority of our city especially in the newer suburbs

Closer to the main city and much larger spaces

Griffith Was a great Uni I attended there Film and media Production course at the Film School but left to work Ft make 100k a year in a warwhousep posotion Uni is over competative

Why is the City so Overpriced

they gon build it using the money they steal from charging students parking fines

Still cant get over the awful eyesore that is the riverside expressway

Do a video on the impact of 50c fares for the cbd and Brissy more broadly

Terrible idea to give it to the uni, it should be a public building for everyone to enjoy. Having the Uni tucked away in the parkland worked, I don't really care to have students everywhere between queen street mall and southbank.

I reckon this is about the best possible outcome. It wont make any difference to me, but it's good to hear of positive outcomes in sea of negativity.

Corrupt Universities in Australia or should they be called Confucius institute's

Star was not selling that building for 248 million 😂😂😂😂 the original deal was 248 for the treasury the multi story car park and the treasury hotel across the road with 120 hotels rooms . Griffith uni paid the full rate for the 1 out of the 3 assets for sale

What a shame. Griffith “Uni” will simply fill it with foreign students doing basket weaving degrees (or similar) in order to get Australian citizenship. The Government should have thought through a better option for this historic site for a use that would enable some degree of public access, as the Casino allowed previously. Not that I’m a big fan of casinos. That building is Brisbane’s version of the Casino in Monte Carlo if you’ve ever been there. A draw card to the city and a fabulous experience. Now it will just be shut up for the benefit of a few unimportant students and overpaid teaching staff. Shame.

The fact that any city could even contemplate demolishing this building and replacing it with a shopping mall says it all about Brisbane, the ghost of Jo still lives. Thanks to Griffith Uni for rescuing it from deranged pollies and developer interests.

So much better that this fantastic building can be used as a place of progress and learning rather than a place of gambling and degeneracy. A step in the right direction for Brisbane

This looks interesting if I was walking around the city.

What a shame. There is nothing they will teach there that won’t be disrupted by AGI. By the time the building is repurposed and the first student graduates - say 5-6 years time - the world will be a very different place. Law, economics, engineering etc will all be heavily disrupted and a large percentage of those working in those fields today will be displaced. The idea that students will be traveling to a fixed location to learn will not be same as it is today. So much of student learning today is done online. The building should have been a hotel, catering for travel and tourism - something that won’t as easily be replaced by AGI. Perhaps Griffith is betting on AGI failing and the world staying the same. That’s a really, really risky bet.

Not so sure how much of a win it will be, the re-moddeling to make it fit for purpose will be a nightmare. My mate was in charge of the original Treasurty build, the amount paperwork and delays caused by trying to keep all of the heritage listed parts original and not destroying anything with the new build was a nightmare. I expect no different this time.

Wouldn't the Uni want to tear it down as it is a remnant of Australia's "racist colonialist and Capitalist" past?

As a Queensland country resident, I was dismayed to see this building become a casino. It will be terrific as a uni campus,and good job Griffith didn't have to pay too much!

It’s an interesting move, Griffith clearly has a very different structure and direction than other QLD Uni’s. They have South Bank, Nathan, Mt Gravatt, Logan and the Gold Coast. This move feels like an extension and solidification of their South Bank campus which is very understated and alongside South Bank TAFE but will probably be regarded as a seperate campus within Griffith (like Nathan and Mt Gravatt which are within walking distance of each other but on opposite sides of the highway). Maybe they could convert the old Myer store into accomodation like the old Coorparoo Myers was (although that was demolished and replaced).
I have no need for a University so this development doesn’t benefit me directly. There are probably many developments that would benefit a broader range of the public and allow more people to enjoy the old Treasury building. Hopefully Griffith include eateries within the building with public access and river views so that they people can finally enjoy the building in a way that the Casino’s locked in set up didn’t allow for.

Is that your dad in the white lambo?

Wow! Fantastic move Griffith. I loved my time as a student at Griffith which goes from strength to strength 😊

Griffith also has Uptown?

I wonder if Australia will develop some industry... perhaps in manufacturing? oh no! Instead you milk the cash cows in a numbers game of more and more.

Another 100 staff is losing job Jin GU😂

I know someone who works for Griffith and they were lamenting how Griffith was laying of staff the same week as they "bought a casino"... I think their comments misconstrue what Griffith was doing but it was interesting timing.