WHAT’S IN STORE
THE abandoned Masters Home Improvement warehouse’s days as an inveterate vacancy are numbered with shock new plans to convert the bulk of it to government offices.
Blueprints submitted to Cairns Regional Council reveal the Department of Human Services plan to shut its four sites in Cairns to be consolidated in a mega-office within the Portsmith building.
It means Centrelink services, as well as child support and Medicare branches, currently operating in the city centre, Earlville and Smithfield will be subsumed into the aggregate complex.
The shift is not a done deal yet – it is described as “shortlisted” in the document – but the plans are well advanced.
DHS would take up a 6087sq m slice of the property, while a further 4138sq m piece has been set aside for furniture giant Amart to set up a new showroom.
The company has not responded to inquiries but it is understood Amart’s current site beside Officeworks on Florence St would be vacated.
A further 50sq m has been earmarked for a small cafe to service the influx of office workers and retail employees.
Neighbouring businesses are happy to see the Masters site – a whopping 27,200sq m including carparks – finally return to use since it was shut down in late-2016.
Intersport Cairns owner Brett Stubbins said the redevelopment should give him “another bite of the cherry”.
“At the end of the day, it will mean more people coming to this place,” he said.
“We’re excited to know something is going over there.”
Leichhardt MP Warren Entsch said an alternative greenfield site had been investigated for the DHS offices but Masters was the frontrunner.
Department of Human Services general manager Hank Jongen said “market testing” for leased office space was under way.
Cairns MP Michael Healy raised an obvious potential issue with the location.
“My concern is that it needs to be on the public transport route and I don’t think a bus stops there,” Mr Healy said.
“It makes sense that the majority of people using these services would be using public transport.”