[CAN] BHP Tower | $250m

[Will]

Why can't the state government develop it? They would do that in china. Why not here?

Because we live in an extreme capitalist system.

Government = bad & evil

Big business = good & wonderful

[Pants]

Because we don't have tens of billions lying around to spend on something that will take many years to realise a return.

[dsriggs]

Because governments can be voted out.

[JamesXander]

"As we finalised the details of the project ... it became clear that the right decision for the company and its shareholders was to continue studies to develop a less capital-intensive option to replace the underground mine at Olympic Dam," Mr Kloppers said.

Kloppers has wasted so much money at BHP with failed takeover bids, takeovers that have lost money and now this ... hmmm maybe it would have been a good idea to go with a less capital intensive option as a fallback in the first place FFS!

And you can add two failed major projects as well. 7 years they have talked about this. Comes to nothing. Port headland too. Yet they hardly blinked buying petrohawk etc last year for $15+B of which a large part has already been written down. Klopper fail

[Waewick]

Why can't the state government develop it? They would do that in china. Why not here?

Because we live in an extreme capitalist system.

Government = bad & evil

Big business = good & wonderful

Nice simplification .

[Ben]

Because governments can be voted out.

that has nothing to do with it. If it's a state project. thats like saying if adelaide oval or superway is not completed by the election it will get scrapped.

[AG]

BHP dumps Adelaide tower plans
BY: SARAH DANCKERT From: The Australian August 25, 2012 12:00AM

More than 250 jobs are at risk in BHP Billiton's Adelaide office. Picture: Kelly Barnes Source: The Australian
BHP Billiton has scrapped plans to take a long-term lease on a purpose-built $250 million office tower in central Adelaide following its decision to shelve the expansion of its Olympic Dam mine.

The miner is also understood to be considering reducing the amount of existing office space it leases, said to be about 10,000sqm, in what will be a blow for the Adelaide office market.

Speculation is mounting that more than 250 of the 700-plus staff working at the company's corporate offices in Adelaide are under threat as a result of the decision.

Adelaide property professionals are maintaining a stiff upper lip despite the miner's devastating decision to put on ice the $US30 billion ($28.6bn) expansion of the uranium and copper mine, 560km north of the city.

Earlier this year the miner began sounding out developers for a purpose-built office tower in the city's central business district to house the new employees.

BHP Billiton established its uranium headquarters in Adelaide in 2009 when the company created the Uranium Customer Sector Group.

Up until recently BHP Billiton was seeking a long-term lease on a state-of-the-art office that would be built for the resources group in the heart of the city. The lease was to include naming rights over the building. Sources said the lease would have been structured in a similar way to those of other large tenants in the city, such as Santos, which are on 10-year leases and pay a significant premium for naming rights.

A spokeswoman for the mining giant confirmed it would not be moving into a specially built $250m office tower in the CBD.

"At this stage the Adelaide office is not planning to move to new accommodation," she said. The spokeswoman said it was "too soon to tell" what affect the decision would have on the size of miner's office space requirement.

In the past year alone more than $1bn in big mixed-use projects have been announced for Adelaide, including a $385m retail development from the Alter family's Pacific Group, the $300m Le Cordon Bleu project from a consortium including the Maras family, and a $300m development from the Makris family and Sydney billionaire Lang Walker.

Several high-rise apartment projects are also planned, with the market attracting private developers from China including Datong Australia and Melbourne-based private developer Bing Chen.

Adelaide architect Paul Pruszinski, who is working on several apartment projects in the CBD, said he expected all developers to continue with their plans.

"None of these plans were linked to the expansion of Olympic Dam," Mr Pruszinski said. "There's significant demand for property in the CBD, particularly at more affordable prices.

"For many people houses in Adelaide, even in the outer suburbs, have become too expensive."

Mr Pruszinski, who has worked on more than 20 high-rise projects in the city including the Hines family's Conservatory office tower on Grenfell Street, said the office market was a different situation.

He said there was only one big office building under way at the moment that had been built without a major pre-commitment, otherwise the office market was quiet.

"There are smaller office buildings proposed around the city as well, but they are subject to pre-commitment and that's going to be pretty tough in the Adelaide market at the moment."

One such small office development that has just been finished is the new eight-storey offices of Adelaide law firm Tindall Gask Bentley at 76 Light Square. Tom Budarick, office leasing director at Jones Lang LaSalle in Adelaide, said there was only 300sqm of space as yet unlet in the building. "We've been doing deals on greater volumes of space this year than last year," he said.

"Roughly the same numbers of transactions.

"Demand for office space will continue irrespective of BHP's decision."

[Omicron]

Why can't the state government develop it? They would do that in china. Why not here?

Because we live in an extreme capitalist system.

Government = bad & evil

Big business = good & wonderful

Sounds good to me!

[Ben]

I don't have acces to the full article but this is another city they are commiting to and they are still yet to do so in Adelaide, yet our rents are far less then the Eastern and Western seaboards. Very dissapointing.

From AFR.com

BHP takes space in Grocon tower

PRINT EDITION: 06 Dec 2012

BHP Billiton will move its Brisbane headquarters to Grocon’s planned $650 million Queen Street tower in a deal with a face value of more than $110?million.

[UrbanSG]

Same old storey for Adelaide. That development in Brisbane is 62,000sqm and around 157m. BHP is taking up only 16,000sqm and other tenants 7,000sqm.

Just shows the different markets in Adelaide and Brisbane for Brisbane to have so much space being constructed without commitment.

BHP currently occupies about 11,000sqm in Adelaide, well at least before the job cuts and the Olympic Dam delay. Maybe one day they'll improve their office here but I won't be holding my breath.

The Santos tower is another one that annoys me. Even though they only tenant about 1/3 or less of the building in Brisbane it looks far more like a world headquarters than the Adelaide building. At least it has a sign instead of a blue cube that lights up at night as well.

Meanwhile we struggle to get anything above 20 storeys. All the recent development is great but to state the obvious our skyline really needs a boost with something at least more than 20 storeys in height.

[ghs]

Santos are about to cut 100 jobs in it's Adelaide office. It is strange that
they have there head office here in Adelaide when they don't have that much of a presence here.

It's not really a head office is it ?

At the end of the day Mining here in SA is not that big - so we can't be negative about mining
companies that setup big operations in WA & QLD, and not here in SA.

Mining is also going downhill at the moment so job cuts are going to happen.

[UrbanSG]

The office in Flinders Street is the Santos 'world headquarters' ghs.

The 100 job cuts don't mean much in terms of office accommodation. They are cutting 100 'old jobs' and actually increasing 'new jobs' next year by hundreds. They are currently expanding in the Cooper Basin to take advantage of increased domestic gas supply prices. Technology improvements also mean mining companies are actually starting to perform jobs that used to occur out in the field within their offices, eg driving trucks etc by computer. This should increase office space demand for mining companies over time despite recent cutbacks.

Santos is actually leasing more office space around the city now, they outgrew their 'world headquarters' years ago. Great forward planning there.

[crawf]

You can't just blame Santos for their less than impressive head office. Only up until earlier this year, height restrictions were conservative to the max hence why we've probably ended up with a pretty average office building for a global head office. However the interior is the opposite and much nicer.

At the end of the day Mining here in SA is not that big - so we can't be negative about mining
companies that setup big operations in WA & QLD, and not here in SA.

Mining is still in the beginning stages here compared to WA & QLD.

Mining is also going downhill at the moment so job cuts are going to happen.

I'm no expert, but is it really?

[Waewick]

like most things in SA - we'll never be as big as the other states, so head offices will always be there.

Even if olympic dam ever goes ahead, BHP won't be building a Tower here.

[ChillyPhilly]

Thought: is it an exploration boom, or are we trying to kid ourselves by calling it a mining boom?