Cobargo Community Development Corporation chair John Walters outside the Village Square on the western side of the street. Photo: Marion Williams.
The rebuild of Cobargo’s main street is tantalisingly close to completion.
Roofs are being put on as scaffolding rapidly comes off, giving residents the first glimpse of their new-look main street.
The project comprises the Village Square building on the western side of the street and the Post Office and Market Hall buildings on the eastern side. The project incorporates five residential apartments.
After the devastating fires that tore through Cobargo on New Year’s Eve 2019, the project was an obvious candidate for the Australian and NSW Government’s Bushfire Local Economic Recovery Fund. It received $19.9 million funding, one of the largest projects that the fund supported in the Far South Coast.
It has been a huge job for the nine volunteer directors of the Cobargo Community Development Corporation (CCDC) which was formed in the aftermath of the bushfires.
CCDC chair John Walters was visibly relieved to report that “all the heavy-duty construction work is complete”.
The concrete slabs were poured in June and July and the internal framework is complete. The roofs are on the two largest buildings with just the Post Office remaining and the scaffolding on the Village Square building is gone.
The complexity of the project, combined with the pressure of the competitive tender process for the funding, and dealing with multiple state and federal government agencies over several years cannot be overstated.
It was not until mid 2021 that CCDC learnt it had secured funding and the signed funding deed did not come through until late 2021, enabling it to commission architect DunnHillam.
Designs were submitted to Bega Valley Shire Council in October 2022. The development application (DA) was approved in September 2023.
The Village Square on the western side of Cobargo’s main street. Photo: Supplied.
CCDC appointed a builder in November 2023 with construction to start at the end of February 2024.
“The week before they were due to start, they went into administration,” Mr Walters said. “That is one of the very many three- to four-month delays that were totally out of our control.”
CCDC appointed ACT-based Monarch Building Services in early March. After the years of planning, design and engineering, actual construction started in April 2024.
“We got two months of work done then there was a bureaucratic issue that stopped work for three months,” Mr Walters said.
When winter arrived, an unexpected geotechnical issue emerged. Cobargo is built on decomposed granite making groundwater a problem.
Big trucks came to pump the three sites, and the construction methodology was modified. Instead of using conventional footings, 43 vertical piles were installed, and the foundation was built on those.
“That added time and cost to the project,” Mr Walters said.
The Post Office and Market Hall buildings on the eastern side of the street. Photo: Supplied.
Additionally, because two of the buildings contain residential apartments there is much heavier regulation.
“Every time you make a small change, you have to go back through the architect and engineer and get it documented and approved so that the finished building is identical to what is on the online portal,” Mr Walters said. “You can’t build heavy complex structures quickly because of all the iterations you have to go through.”
Now the CCDC is focused on securing tenants for the apartments and commercial and retail spaces.
Heads of agreement have been issued with priority tenants who had been identified as heavily affected by the bushfires.
A real estate agent is working on securing the remaining spaces with commercial and retail enterprises expressing interest.
In addition to the Post Office, and a visitor information hub, there are 10 retail spaces, five allied health consulting rooms and a large co-working space with meeting rooms. They could be used by travelling mental health professionals and finance brokers.
Monarch Building Services prefers using local tradesmen where possible, although some have come from as far as Bega and Moruya and elsewhere in the region. Mr Walters is pleased that local cafes and coffee outlets have benefited from the extra business associated with having up to 65 tradespeople on-site and that the Cobargo Co-operative has done a roaring trade.
The buildings are expected to be activated over a period of weeks as businesses move in and open their doors from late January onwards.
CCDC is looking forward to a grand opening in April/May after a very testing period of more than six years.
