General News
3 December, 2025
New community hub proposal set for Kuranda
KURANDA is set for a new community hub, to be built by the Ngoonbi Community Services Indigenous Corporation, which will house a café, retail shops, offices and an arcade-style area for future commercial and community use.
The multi-level centre will replace the original buildings on Coondoo and Barang Streets, which were set up by Ngoombi in 1975 for an office for their Aboriginal-led housing cooperative – one of Australia’s first – and for their Jilli Binna arts and craft shop.
At its October meeting, Mareeba Shire Council approved the Material Change of Use development application that will also pave the way for an “integrated commercial space of a similar nature and scale to numerous other markets and arcades within the Kuranda village.
The old buildings have been approved for demolition, despite a heritage overlay on the Jilli Binna building.
A council report said, however, there was “significant structural deterioration” to render demolition approval.
“Given the local heritage status of the existing building, the development seeks to preserve and reintegrate elements of heritage significance into the redevelopment. This includes, for example, the salvaging of heritage tiling from the façade of the existing building, and integration of same into the internal breezeway and visible external walls of the future building.”
In further detail, the application said a designated retail space would be intended for the sale and showcasing of locally-produced art, opposite a café.
The ground level of the development would be characterised by an active street frontage, with internal bi-fold doors to both café and the retail space. An internal walkway also provided multiple seating areas, which facilitates pedestrian movement into and through the building from Coondoo Street.
The upper level of the development would provide office uses to cater to the business and administrative needs of the Ngoonbi Community Services Indigenous Corporation.
Existing sheds on lot 714 are proposed as a conversion into a “youth hub”, which would also house a laundry and toilets.
The application attracted only one submission, which was concerned that the proposed design and style of the new building would clash with the general architectural style of the village.
However, Council’s report said the proposed development presented as an “attractive redevelopment of the existing site that is consistent with the variations in building form of the surrounding street”.
The development also provides a building frontage that addresses Coondoo Street with a clearly defined breezeway entrance, small and well-delineated “tenancies” with expansive street-facing windows, and a variety of recesses and awning projections.
“The building design is not out of character with the diverse range of buildings within the Kuranda commercial area. The existing 78 building designs range from a 19th-century sailing ship to a modern tilt slab supermarket,” the report said.
“The proposed development has a subtle modern design, respectful of the Kuranda main street whilst being suitable to accommodate the various demands of the applicant’s business and community operations.
“The design provides ample opportunities for streetscape activation and treatments that are a vast improvement over the existing outcome, whilst maintaining connection with the built form heritage through the reintegration of historic tiling throughout the breezeway.”
The report continued that the proposed development was “an architecturally designed outcome that provides a generous mix of colours, materials, projections / recesses and street-front windows that will improve the presentation of the site and the streetscape character.”
