Randwick Council provides update on new Heffron Centre community sporting complex

Randwick City Council has released detailed artist impressions and a 3D fly-through of its new Heffron Centre community sporting complex.

Located in the Sydney's Eastern Suburbs, the plans show how Maroubra’s new indoor sports centre, gymnastics centre and new home for the NRL's South Sydney Rabbitohs will look.

The Rabbitohs will move their headquarters and Souths Cares community outreach work from their longstanding home in Redfern into their south-east supporter heartland of Randwick City by the end of 2022.

Located in Heffron Park, the $58 million facility includes significant publicly accessible areas including the sports centre and gymnastics centre, a café, hall of fame, merchandise shop and fan area to view training on the NRL standard showcase field.

Randwick Mayor Danny Said says the release of the detailed graphics is a significant milestone in the project, stating “it’s been a lot of hard work to get to this point and I’m very pleased that we are on the verge of starting construction on what will be the biggest project ever undertaken by Randwick Council.

“This facility is funded by Souths and all three levels of Government and has been seven years in planning. It will deliver more than 200 jobs during construction and more than 60 ongoing jobs through the operation of the facility.

“It will be a true community sporting facility for the whole community and provides Souths with the opportunity to expand their Souths Cares community outreach work with our local schools and young people.”

South Sydney Chief Executive, Blake Solly said the facility has been designed to provide shared community use of many of the facilities including a dedicated Souths Cares classroom, lecture theatre, function rooms as well as access to the playing field.

Solly noted “we are intent on ensuring the Centre is a facility the Club, the Council and the community will be very proud of.

“We’re all very excited to see the project move to the next level and the production of these high resolution images and the fly-through video gives us all a fantastic insight into how the Heffron Centre will look and operate.

“Importantly, the Heffron Centre will also allow us to double the size and reach of our community programs which have already helped achieve over 400 Aboriginal employment placements, helped young people achieve their HSC and helped over 7,600 students with health and well-being messages.”

The Heffron Centre Community High Performance Centre for the Rabbitohs includes dedicated administration and operational areas, high performance training areas, player amenities, recovery zones including aquatic recovery, physiotherapy and medical, lecture theatre and classroom and a merchandise shop.

The community gymnastic facility will be able to operate seven days a week up to 10pm and includes state of the art facilities including a dedicated gymnastics zone showcasing community history, awards and memories along with two multi-purpose sports halls to accommodate sports such as netball, basketball, badminton, volleyball and futsal.

The Heffron Centre will be fully owned by Randwick City Council with lease arrangements in place to the South Sydney Rabbitohs and operators of the indoor sports centre and gymnastics centre.

Randwick City Council is currently calling for tenders for construction of the facility which is anticipated to commence construction in mid-late 2021.

Images (from top): Aerial view of the planned Heffron Centre, view of the internal 'street' within the Heffron Centre, the NRL field for Souths Sydney Rabbitohs’ training and community sport; and inside the South Sydney Rabbitohs' training locker room.