New Telstra headquarters in Canberra

Telstra today announced it would establish a major new office and commercial centre in Canberra, consolidating many of its existing operations in one location and providing accommodation for a new team being set up to deliver specialist telecommunications services to the Department of Defence.

A 12-year lease was recently signed for an office building at 16-18 Mort Street, Canberra. Refurbishment of the building will be completed by early 2014 and the building will then accommodate more than 1,000 people across 13,250 square metres of office space.

“This will be the biggest project our property team has undertaken in Canberra and the largest for the company so far this year,” Telstra Property Director Mr Vito Chiodo said.

“The project has plenty of moving parts – we will create state-of-the-art office accommodation for many of our existing teams, install a new Telstra store, fully refurbish the building entrance and reception areas complete with a new café and free Wi-Fi, as well as build extensive accommodation for a large team of specialists now being pulled together to deliver sensitive defence work. From a property perspective this project has plenty of moving parts, all of them useful and carefully thought through.”

It is expected 120 local jobs will be created during the construction period, which will begin immediately and is expected to be completed in early 2014.

Under the terms of the agreement, building owner Investa Office Fund will fund the refurbishment of the office floors and building lobby. Existing Telstra operations now housed in offices in Northbourne Avenue in Dickson, National Circuit in Barton, Thynne Street in Bruce and Kent Street in Deakin will all be consolidated in the Mort Street building. Telstra staff will continue to occupy an office at Faulding Street, Symonston.

Mr Chiodo said the refurbishment would follow Telstra’s innovative office accommodation standards which promote staff collaboration and communication through open-plan seating and multiple meeting and breakout areas. The base building infrastructure will also be upgraded to improve the efficiency of operations.

“The end result will be an environment that is inviting but also reflects the high-tech and customer-focused nature of our organisation,” said Mr Chiodo.

The Canberra project is the latest deal in Telstra Property’s national office consolidation and refurbishment program which has consolidated Telstra’s previous network of small work locations into larger customised facilities and refurbished existing leased properties.

In the past three years the overhaul of Telstra’s property portfolio has seen more than 220,000 square metres of office space refurbished. Since July 2005, this program has also overseen:

- a reduction of 188 leased sites across Australia,
- a reduction of Telstra’s net lettable area by 383,713 square metres; and,
- delivered $169 million in gross annualised lease savings.

Telstra recently signed a six-year $1.1 billion contract with the Department of Defence to provide telecommunications services creating 350 new Telstra jobs, some of which will be based in Canberra.