NSW spends $35m on 11-floor Sydney CBD startup hub

Up to 2500 entrepreneurs will get Sydney CBD desks at subsidised rents, under a $35 million NSW government plan for a 17,000 square metre start-up hub.

Comprising levels 1 to 11 above Wynyard train station at 11-31 York Street, the hub’s four cornerstone tenants are all established co-working spaces that will relocate or expand from elsewhere in the city when the hub opens by early 2018 – Fishburners, Tankstream Labs, creative industries specialist The Studio, and fintech specialist Stone & Chalk.

The NSW government will contribute $35 million over five years to fitouts and rent subsidies for the four, under a strategy worked out by Jobs For NSW, an agency set up in partnership with the private sector in 2016.

“We could have spent that money piecemeal but we wouldn’t have got the bang for the buck we believe this will give us in terms of job creation,” NSW deputy premier John Barilaro told The Australian Financial Review.

“The co-working spaces have been telling us they are full, they are constrained where they are, so this brings them all together in that precinct dynamic that we’ve seen work so well for San Francisco and Silicon Valley.”

Jobs For NSW chairman, former Telstra boss David Thodey, said the CBD location of the hub would be instrumental to its success.

“This will be a great focal point for start-ups, and its proximity to Wynyard station was critical. Early-stage businesses thrive on collaboration and this is designed to make it as frictionless as possible,” he said.

 

To read more about the startup hub, please click on the link below…

Source: NSW spends $35m on 11-floor Sydney CBD startup hub | afr.com